Cape Canaveral, Florida – Today marks an extraordinary day for spaceflight, with an unprecedented five rocket launches set to take place within the next 24 hours. Scheduled missions by SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and the Russian space agency Roscosmos are expected to unfold over a span of about 20 hours, each launch separated by several hours. To witness all five launches, enthusiasts will need to rise early before dawn and stay up late into the night with the last liftoff coinciding with the local late-night news schedule.
The day kicks off with SpaceX initiating the action by launching a group of Starlink internet satellites from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The scheduled three-hour window opens at 3:37 a.m. EST (0837 GMT), with SpaceX live-streaming the event on its official platform. Meanwhile, Blue Origin plans to launch its New Shepard rocket on an uncrewed research mission at 11:00 a.m. EST (1600 GMT), showcasing 30 science payloads experiencing simulated moon gravity for two minutes.
Following suit, Rocket Lab is scheduled to send an Electron rocket from New Zealand’s Launch Complex 1 on the “IoT 4 You and Me” mission carrying five satellites for the French company Kinéis. This mission is designed to provide tracking and real-time alerts globally and will be live-streamed on Space.com. SpaceX’s second mission of the day will involve the launch of two Maxar Technology WorldView Legion satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This launch, part of a constellation of Earth-observation satellites, will take place at 6:07 p.m. EST (2307 GMT).
To round out the day, Roscosmos is set to launch an unknown payload from Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome at 10 p.m. EST (0300 GMT on Feb. 5). This mission adds a touch of mystery to the already eventful day of multiple launches. However, with the unpredictability of spaceflight, it is crucial to note that any of the launches could potentiall be delayed or canceled.
Despite the risks of encountering delays or cancellations, the fact that there are five launches scheduled in a single day underscores the remarkable advancements in the field of spaceflight. The abundance of launches on a single day highlights the progress and innovation that has made such a feat possible in the modern era of space exploration.