SpaceX scrubs 20th Starlink communications satellite launch

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- SpaceX failed to launch a cluster of Starlink commuications satellites Sunday night when the countdown halted 1 minute, 24 seconds before the planned liftoff from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

No immediate explanation was given for the scrubbed launch.

Elon Musk's rocket company said its next opportunity to get the Falcon 9 rocket off the ground and send 60 satellites into orbit could come as early as Monday, with a launch window that begins at 8:15 p.m. EST.

SpaceX has launched more than 1,000 Starlink satellites, although some of those deorbited and burned up in the atmosphere as they were designed to do.

Ultimately, the company plans to launch up to 12,000 satellites, but with a high replacement rate because each spacecraft's life expectancy is only a few years.

SpaceX has been testing its high-speed Internet service in Canada and the northern United States, and is expanding to points farther south.

The booster scheduled for the delayed mission is to make a record-tying eighth launch, and hopefully a landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

SpaceX lost the booster from its Feb., 16 launch when it missed the ship splashed down in the ocean.