SpaceX plans to launch a new Earth-observation satellite along with several smaller spacecraft from California on Tuesday (Aug. 26), and you can watch it live.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying Luxembourg's National Advanced Optical System (NAOS) spacecraft is scheduled to lift off during a 27-minute window that opens at 2:53 p.m. EDT (1853 GMT or 11:53 a.m. PDT local) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
SpaceX is planning to webcast the mission beginning about 15 minutes prior to launch. You can watch it here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company's website or its account on the X social media network.
Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich | DART | Transporter-7 | Iridium OneWeb | SDA-0B | NROL-113 | NROL-167 | NROL-149 | 18 Starlink missions
In addition to NOAS, which was built for Luxembourg by the company OHB Italia, the Falcon 9 will loft small satellites for Dhruva Space (LEAP-1); the San Francisco-based company Planet (Pelican-3 and Pelican-4); and Exolaunch (Capella's Acadia-6 and Pixxel's FFLY-1, FFLY-2, and FFLY-3).
If all goes to plan, NAOS will be deployed about 12 minutes into the flight, with the secondary payloads following over the next hour.
LEAP-1 (or Launching Expeditions for Aspiring Payloads-1) is comprised of two demonstrations, including an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) module and a hyperspectral imager. The Pelican satellites will join Planet's Earth-imaging constellation.
The Acadia and FFLY nanosats are also commercial observation platforms, the former featuring synthetic aperture radar technology and the latter high-frequency hyperspectral imaging.
Once spent, the Falcon 9's first stage will land back at Landing Zone-4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg. If successful, it will be the booster's (B1063) 27th recovery.
This launch will be SpaceX's 104th Falcon 9 mission of 2025 and the 522nd Falcon 9 launch since 2010.
