CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — Even though the weather was uncertain, SpaceX was able to launch nearly 30 Starlink satellites early Saturday morning. 

SpaceX stated that it sent up its Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 12:26 a.m. ET.

The launch window opened at 12:26 a.m. ET and it was set to close at 4:26 a.m. ET, which meant SpaceX had during that four-hour timeframe to launch the Starlink 10-34 mission.

The forecast was iffy, with the 45th Weather Squadron giving a “40→10%” against the launch, citing cumulus cloud, surface electric fields and anvil cloud rules.

Find out more about the weather criteria for a Falcon 9 launch.

If there was a scrub, the next launch attempt would have been Sunday starting at 12:04 a.m. ET.

Going up

This is the fifth mission for the Falcon 9's first-stage rocket booster B1092.

• Starlink 12-13 mission
• NROL-69 mission
• Bandwagon-3 mission
• GPS III-7 mission

After the stage separation, the first-stage rocket landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas that was in the Atlantic Ocean.

About the mission

The 27 satellites from the Starlink company, owned by SpaceX, will be heading to low-Earth orbit to join the thousands already there.

Once deployed and in their orbit, they will provide internet service to many parts of Earth.

Dr. Jonathan McDowell, of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been recording Starlink satellites.

Before this launch, McDowell recorded the following:

• 7,875 are in orbit
• 6,957 are in operational orbit