{"id":9616,"date":"2026-02-15T18:10:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T10:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-predawn-starlink-mission-on-presidents-day\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T18:10:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T10:10:26","slug":"spacex-launches-predawn-starlink-mission-on-presidents-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-predawn-starlink-mission-on-presidents-day\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches predawn Starlink mission on President\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_72604\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-72604\" style=\"width: 678px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-72604\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260216-Starlink_6-103_preview.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"678\" height=\"453\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260216-Starlink_6-103_preview.jpeg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/20260216-Starlink_6-103_preview-300x200.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-72604\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the Starlink 6-103 mission on Feb. 16, 2026. Image: John Pisani\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em><strong>Update Feb. 16, 3:22 a.m. EST (0822 UTC): SpaceX landed the Falcon 9 booster on the droneship.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>SpaceX kicked off the President\u2019s Day holiday in the United States with a Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, overcoming some challenging weather conditions.<\/p>\n<p>The Starlink 6-103 mission added 29 broadband internet satellites to the company\u2019s low Earth orbit megaconstellation of more than 9,600 spacecraft. This was SpaceX\u2019s 14 Starlink launch of the year so far. The company confirmed a successful deployment of the satellites about an hour after launch.<\/p>\n<p>Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 happened at 2:59:40 a.m. EST (0759:40 UTC). The Falcon 9 rocket flew on a south-easterly trajectory upon leaving the launch pad.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aj2DA2z-YNQ?si=uRKH9hpY_7sYQP8d\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The 45th Weather Squadron forecast just a 20 percent chance for acceptable weather during the launch window. Meteorologists are tracking potentially severe weather heading into the state over the course of Sunday and heading into Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs the low slides eastwards to move off the Georgia coast late tonight, south-southwest winds will increase during the day, even outside of any precipitation,\u201d launch weather officers wrote. \u201cModels have come into better agreement with the timing of a band of pre-frontal showers and storms, currently moving through the Florida Panhandle, reaching the Spaceport just before the opening of the primary window.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShowers and storms are expected to linger for a few hours into the window before sliding south of the area. While this activity loses intensity as it arrives, strong wind gusts will still be possible. The primary concerns will be the Cumulus Cloud Rule, Surface Electric Fields Rule, and Anvil Cloud Rules, though additional thunderstorm-related rules are likely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX launched the mission using the Falcon 9 first stage booster with the tail number 1090. This was its 10th flight after launching previous missions, like NASA\u2019s Crew-10, CRS-33 and Bandwagon-3.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1090 landed on the drone ship, \u2018A Shortfall of Gravitas,\u2019 positioned in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the 142nd landing on this vessel and the 572nd booster landing to date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on the Starlink 6-103 mission on Feb. 16, 2026. Image: John Pisani\/Spaceflight Now Update Feb. 16, 3:22 a.m. EST (0822 UTC): SpaceX landed the Falcon 9 booster on the droneship. SpaceX kicked off the President\u2019s Day [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[673,826,479,675,676,316,440,827],"class_list":["post-9616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-asog","tag-b1090","tag-falcon-9","tag-slc-40","tag-sld-45","tag-spacex","tag-starlink","tag-starlink-6-103"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9616"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}