Watch Live: SpaceX lines up Starlink launch while private Axiom Space mission waits out weather
The payload of 23 Starlink satellites on another SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, though, does not require as much caution, so a launch from neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 is still on targeting liftoff at 9:05 a.m. during a window that runs through 1:02 p.m.
Space Launch Delta 45's weather squadron forecasts a 95% chance for good conditions at the opening of the window, although those chances decline to just 70% by the early afternoon.
The first-stage booster for the mission is making its 12th flight and will aim for a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.
It would be the 49th launch on the Space Coast with all but two coming from SpaceX.
If it goes up, launch No. 50 could come Wednesday morning as the Ax-4 mission looks to send up its crew in a new Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 launching from KSC's Launch Pad 39-A at 8 a.m. It's the second flight of the mission's first-stage booster, which would return to Canaveral's Landing Zone 1, meaning a sonic boom could be heard on the Space Coast and parts of Central Florida.
SLD 45's weather squadron forecasts an 80% chance for good conditions at the launch site, but the forecast continues to predict moderate to high winds along the launch corridor that includes areas needed in case of an emergency abort.
A backup to Thursday at 7:37 a.m. sees a better weather forecast for those downrange winds expected to have died down some, while chances at the launch site would be 75% for good conditions.
The Ax-4 mission is commanded by former NASA astronaut and now Axiom Space employee Peggy Whitson making what would be her fifth trip to space. She is leading three men whose seats were paid for by the governments of India and Hungary, as well as Poland through its membership with the European Space Agency.
India's Shubhanshu Shukla is taking the role of pilot while Hungary's Tibor Kapu and Poland's Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski are mission specialists. None of those three countries have had national astronauts fly to space in more than four decades.
They plan to dock with the International Space Station one day after launch for about a two-week stay during which the quartet will work on about 60 science investigations representing 31 different countries. More than two dozen of those will be sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory.
This would be the third human spaceflight from the Space Coast in 2023 following SpaceX's Crew-10 mission and the private polar orbital Fram2 mission.
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