More than 150 Elon Musk Starlink Satellites will be passing over UK skies tonight, Tuesday March 2
18:46, 02 March 2021
updated: 18:49, 02 March 2021
If you like to see the Starlink satellites travelling across the night sky you are in for a bonanza this evening, Tuesday, March 2.
From around 6.50pm, and lasting for about 50 minutes, you could see more than 150 Starlinks pass over the UK, clear skies permitting.
The first train of around 70 satellites will be from Starlink 18 and then at 7.10pm the Starlink 19 train, with more than 80 satellites, will become visible.
Both trains will be travelling from west to east and you may see other satellites crossing their paths.
The Starlink satellites are the brainchild of business tycoon Elon Musk, who owns US company SpaceX and who plans to eventually have 12,000 of them in the sky. They are intended to provide satellite internet access.
But they are not popular with astronomers who fear that they will interfere with the natural spectacles that the stars and planets provide.
The launch of more Starlink satellites has been rescheduled after being postponed 90 seconds before take-off due to bad weather at the weekend.
The launch is now expected to be at 12.53am GMT, Wednesday, March 3, from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
In a tweet on Monday afternoon, Elon Musk’s SpaceX company said: “Due to poor weather conditions in the recovery area and to allow additional time for pre-launch checks, now targeting Tuesday, March 2 at 7:53 p.m. EST for launch of Starlink from LC-39A.”
