After waiting in the rain for a planned liftoff, SpaceX had to delay its Falcon 9 Starlink mission that was initially set for late Tuesday evening. The reason? Well, the weather in California was pretty bad, and SpaceX called it "unfavorable."
Around 1 a.m. ET on Wednesday, SpaceX, or X as they like to be called on Twitter, said, "Due to unfavorable weather, we are standing down from tonight's launch of Starlink. Next launch opportunity is no earlier than Wednesday, Feb. 7 pending weather conditions."
Before they even tried to launch, SpaceX mentioned that only 30% of the weather conditions were looking good.
The plan was to send 22 Starlink satellites into orbit from the Vandenberg Space Force Base on the California coast. There was a seven-minute livestream that got a lot of views (over 330,000 to be exact), but the liftoff had to be put on hold.
California had been hit hard with extreme rainy conditions this week, causing more than 500 mudslides, five deaths, and around $11 billion in damages so far. The New York Times said California's weather was "a weather day for the record books."
The state is facing something called an "atmospheric river," a long, narrow band of moisture that brings a ton of rain. Southern California even had heavy rain and hail last night.
NASA and SpaceX's PACE launch also got postponed because of the crazy weather. NASA said the ground winds were too strong for their "prelaunch checkouts."
There are already more than 5,000 Starlink satellites orbiting Earth, all part of the plan to give people all over the world internet access.
Now, the Falcon 9 Starlink launch is rescheduled for Wednesday night at 8:17 p.m. ET.
As Starlink tries to spread its internet reach, it's got to get the thumbs up from regulators. Over the weekend, there were reports that Botswana said "no" to Starlink's application to provide internet in the country. But a person from the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority said that's not true. They emailed PCMag on Tuesday, saying the application is still being looked at and hasn't been rejected.
Oh, and by the way, SpaceX has another plan for Wednesday morning. They're bringing four astronauts from the International Space Station back to Earth in a crewed mission. Cool, right?