Two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets are scheduled to launch Starlink

The first month of 2023 will be finished off by two SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets, and the second will begin with a Starlink double-header.

SpaceX put a 24-hour delay on its final flight of the month "to finish pre-launch checkouts." Starlink 2-6 and a D-Orbit rideshare payload will be launched by the first Falcon 9 rocket on January 30 no sooner than 8:29 am PST (16:29 UTC). The mission will launch from SpaceX's SLC-4E pad at the Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) and go southeast, avoiding the coasts of California and Mexico. A backup window is open at 12:31 PM PST in case of inclement weather or a minor technical fault.

A second Falcon 9 rocket will launch from SpaceX's NASA Kennedy Space Center LC-39A pad in Florida around 3:02 am EST on Tuesday, February 1st, maybe 35.5 or 39.5 hours from now.

Starlink 2-6, which will begin the duo, will be SpaceX's sixth Starlink rideshare mission since the company started manifesting outside payloads on its broadband satellite launches in June 2020. Starlink 5-3, which is expected to be largely identical to Starlink 5-2, which SpaceX successfully launched on January 26th, will not include any ridesharing payloads.