{"id":182899,"date":"2025-12-14T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T05:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/182899\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T05:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T05:00:09","slug":"spacex-aims-for-550th-booster-landing-amid-saturday-night-flight-spaceflight-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/182899\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX aims for 550th booster landing amid Saturday night flight \u2013 Spaceflight Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-71082\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20251007_Falcon-9_sunset.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"404\"  \/>File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in launch position at Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base at sunset. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX will attempt to complete its 550th successful booster landing as part of a late night launch from Vandenberg Space Force Station on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The Starlink 15-12 mission will add another 27 Starlink V2 Mini satellites to SpaceX\u2019s growing megaconstellation of broadband internet satellites in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East is scheduled for Dec. 13, during a window that opens at 9:20 p.m. PST (12:20 a.m. EST \/ 0520 UTC on Sunday, Dec. 14). The rocket will fly on a south-easterly trajectory upon leaving the pad.<\/p>\n<p>Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.<\/p>\n<p>\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX will launch the Starlink 15-12 mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number 1093. This will be its ninth flight after flying two missions for the Space Development Agency as well as six prior Starlink missions.<\/p>\n<p>About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1093 will target an autonomous landing on the drone ship, \u2018Of Course I Still Love You,\u2019 positioned in the Pacific Ocean. If successful, this will be the 170th landing on this vessel and the 451st landing on a drone ship for SpaceX.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in launch position at Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-182899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}