Mission and payload info

EarthCARE is a planned joint European/Japanese (ESA/JAXA/NICT) satellite, the sixth of ESA’s Living Planet Programme. The main goal of the mission is the observation and characterization of clouds and aerosols as well as measuring the reflected solar radiation and the infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface and atmosphere.

Launch info

Scheduled for (UTC) 2024-05-28, 22:20
Scheduled for (local) 2024-05-28, 15:20 (PDT)
Launch site SLC-4E, Vandenberg SFB, California
Payload EarthCARE
Booster 1081-7
Landing site LZ-4
Customer ESA/JAXA/NICT
Mission success criteria Successful delivery of payload to sun synchronous orbit

Webcasts

Stream Link
ESA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9WKok_1Jhg
Space Affairs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQF1Q_MZNWk
Spaceflight Now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=516ClI1Ylu0
NASASpaceflight
The Launch Pad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn95LmUNah8
SpaceX https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1795577480109322331
The Space Devs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTejJWwA1O8

Stats

Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:

☑️ 18th launch from SLC-4E this year

☑️ 6 days, 14:20:00 turnaround for this pad

☑️ 19th landing on LZ-4

☑️ 56th Falcon 9 launch this year, 57th SpaceX launch this year

☑️ 270th consecutive successful Falcon 9 launch (excluding Amos-6) (if successful)

☑️ 356th SpaceX mission overall (excluding Starship hops)

☑️ 369th SpaceX launch all time (including Starship hops)

☑️ 315th Falcon Family Booster landing, 325th Falcon recovery attempt