After eight days of bad weather cleared from Space Coast skies, SpaceX got right back to work and sent a Falcon 9 to orbit from Pad SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station late Monday evening. Tonight’s payload was another 33 Starlink satellites with the mission designation Starlink 6-34.

Liftoff was right on time at 11:01pm under clear skies and calm winds. Those same skies had bedeviled SpaceX the past eight days, with high winds and rains causing multiple delays and scrubs until this evening. As it has been with other Starlink satellites in this particular group — Shell 6 — the trajectory was towards the southeast.

Staging, landing and recovery of the first stage went as planned, with Booster 1081 completing its third flight successfully when it landed downrange off the coast of the Bahamas on the automated drone ship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ some eight and one-half minuted after liftoff. Previously, this booster had carried astronauts aboard Crew Dragon on the Crew-7 mission, followed by the CRS-29 mission to ferry supplies and equipment to the International Space Station last month.

Next up for SpaceX in Florida is a launch planned for Friday, December 22nd when the company plans to send another batch of Starlink satellites in Group 6 to orbit. SpaceX has yet to announce a firm time for the launch, but it is widely expected to be in roughly the same four-hour launch window as have other recent Starlink launches: 11pm-2am the following morning.

Author: Charles Boyer

NASA kid from Cocoa Beach, FL, born of Project Apollo parents and family. I’m a writer and photographer sharing the story of spaceflight from the Eastern Range here in Florida.