SpaceX is ready for Starlink launch from Vandenberg on west coast

Weather may be preventing the launch of Starlinks from Florida, but SpaceX is targeting Thursday, December 14 for a Falcon 9 launch of 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Liftoff is targeted for 9:04 p.m. PT, with backup opportunities available until 12:37 a.m. PT on Friday, December 15. If needed, additional opportunities are also available on Friday, December 15 starting at 9:19 p.m. PT. 737 rockets have launched from Vandenberg SFB, California.

The forecast calls for a temperature of 58°F, scattered clouds, 40% cloud cover and a wind speed of 1mph.

Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) is a SpaceX autonomous spaceport droneship (ASDS) that is operated out of the Port of Long Beach, California. Of Course I Still Love You droneship was previously based in Florida from 2015 to 2021. Of Course I Still Love You is named after a spacecraft from ‘The Player of Games‘, a novel from author Iain M. Banks’s Culture series.

At a cost of $52,000,000 the launch may take place from 9:04 p.m. – 1:24 a.m. PST(11:59 p.m. – 4:24 a.m. EST, 0459-0924 UTC). The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will land on the drone ship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ in the Pacific Ocean.

The second autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) barge, Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) services launches in the Pacific Ocean and was the site of the first landing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage during CRS-8, the launch of a Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. SpaceX commissioned the building of ASDS to allow for recovery of rocket first-stages at sea for high-velocity missions that do not carry enough fuel to return to the launch site after lofting spacecraft onto an orbital trajectory.