Watch SpaceX launch a South Korean military satellite today

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Liftoff is set for 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT).

Update for 6 p.m. ET: SpaceX has successfully launched the South Korea's Anasis-II military communications satellite and landed its Falcon 9 booster at sea. Read our full story.

Original story:

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch South Korea's first military satellite today (July 20) after a nearly weeklong delay for extra booster checks. 

The Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the satellite, called Anasis-II, at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) today from SpaceX's Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. 

You can watch the SpaceX launch live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of SpaceX. You can also watch the launch directly from SpaceX's webcast page here and on YouTube here. The company is also expected to provide mission audio from its launch control center on its YouTube page.

Related: See the evolution of SpaceX's rockets in pictures

The mission has a nearly four-hour launch window that closes at 8:55 p.m. EDT (0055 July 21 GMT), but the weather looks good. There is a 70% chance of good launch weather today, according to the U.S. Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron. 

SpaceX originally hoped to launch South Korea's Anasis-II satellite on July 14, but called the mission off a day before liftoff to perform extra checks on the Falcon 9's upper stage. The rocket's first stage has flown to space before: It launched SpaceX's first astronaut mission for NASA, Demo-2, on May 30.

"We're being extra paranoid. Maximizing [the] probability of successful launch is paramount," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on Twitter.

Those booster checks were complete by Saturday (July 18), when SpaceX announced that it was now targeting a launch for today.

SpaceX aims to recover the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket after today's launch. The booster is expected to land on the company's drone ship "Just Read The Instructions" stationed offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. 

The Anasis-II military communications satellite for South Korea is seen as it is shipped from Airbus' clean room in Toulouse, France to Cape Canaveral, Florida for launch. (Image credit: Airbus Defence and Space)

That landing should occur eight minutes and 31 seconds after liftoff. After the landing, SpaceX will shut down its live coverage at the request of the South Korean government.

"Per the customer's request, live coverage will end shortly after first stage landing," the company said.

The Anasis-II satellite is designed to "provide secured communications over wide coverage," according to its builder Airbus Defence and Space. 

It is based on Airbus' Eurostar E3000 satellite platform and will be launched into a geostationary orbit, which will allow it to maintain position over a specific part of Earth at an altitude of  22,000 miles (36,000 kilometers). 

If all goes well, Anasis-II will be deployed in an initial orbit about 32 minutes after liftoff, SpaceX said.

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Tariq Malik
Tariq Malik
Editor-in-Chief

Tariq is the Editor-in-Chief of Space.com and joined the team in 2001, first as an intern and staff writer, and later as an editor. He covers human spaceflight, exploration and space science, as well as skywatching and entertainment. He became Space.com's Managing Editor in 2009 and Editor-in-Chief in 2019. Before joining Space.com, Tariq was a staff reporter for The Los Angeles Times covering education and city beats in La Habra, Fullerton and Huntington Beach. In October 2022, Tariq received the Harry Kolcum Award for excellence in space reporting from the National Space Club Florida Committee. He is also an Eagle Scout (yes, he has the Space Exploration merit badge) and went to Space Camp four times as a kid and a fifth time as an adult. He has journalism degrees from the University of Southern California and New York University. You can find Tariq at Space.com and as the co-host to the This Week In Space podcast with space historian Rod Pyle on the TWiT network. To see his latest project, you can follow Tariq on Twitter @tariqjmalik.