SpaceX launching 21 Starlink satellites early Jan. 21 on 1st flight since Starship explosion

SpaceX is set to launch another batch of its Starlink internet satellites early Tuesday morning (Jan. 21), five days after a test flight of the company’s Starship megarocket ended in an explosion.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 21 Starlink satellites is scheduled to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday, during a nearly four-hour window that opens at 12:24 a.m. EST (0524 GMT).

SpaceX will webcast the action live via its X account, beginning about five minutes before launch.

The Falcon 9’s first stage will return to Earth about eight minutes after liftoff, touching down in the Atlantic Ocean on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas.”

It will be the eighth launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. Three of its seven flights to date have been Starlink missions.

The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will carry the 21 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit, deploying them there about 65 minutes after liftoff.

Related: Starlink satellite train: how to see and track it in the night sky

Tuesday morning’s liftoff will be the ninth Falcon 9 mission of 2025 and SpaceX’s 10th launch of the year overall. The other mission was the seventh-ever test flight of SpaceX’s Starship megarocket, which took place on Thursday (Jan. 16) from South Texas.

That flight was a mixed bag for the company. Starship’s giant first-stage Super Heavy booster came back to its launch site for a dramatic catch by the tower’s “chopstick” arms, but the vehicle’s upper stage exploded just 8.5 minutes after liftoff, apparently after suffering a propellant leak.