SpaceX readies two launches
August 27, 2020
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is planning two rocket launches over the next few days.
The first, likely on August 28th, is an Earth observation satellite for Argentina, SAOCOM 1B. What will be unusual is that Musk’s team is hoping to bring the rocket’s first stage directly back to Earth and land the booster stage at Cape Canaveral.
The second launch, probably on August 30th, will take another batch of about 60 Starlink broadband satellites from Launch Complex 40 into low Earth orbit. This launch will be the 12th of the Starlink series and will take the number of Starlink satellite in orbit to more than 700.
The first stage is planned to be recovered by the drone vessel ‘Of Course I Still Love You’.
Starlink’s last launch (batch 11) was on August 18th. The next Starlink launch – Number 13 – is scheduled for September.