A mysterious bright light in the skies over Cayman last month turned out to be SpaceX Starlink satellites. If you missed that, there’s a possibility newly launched Starlink satellites will be visible to local skygazers tomorrow evening, Wednesday, 29 March.
Sometime between 3:11pm and 6:54pm Cayman time, the Falcon 8 rocket will take off carrying a payload of 50 Starlink internet satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida. This will be the fourth Starlink launch this month.
Tiyen Miller of the Cayman Islands Astronomical Society says if the launch happens towards the end of that scheduled window, when it’s close to dusk in Cayman, it may enable people here to see the satellites.
Following the launch, “the initial booster stage will return to Earth somewhere over the Bahamas,” Miller said. “The upper stage will continue burning its rocket… until it’s just north of Puerto Rico. That was visible last time for those destinations, around Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic.
“Then the rocket will coast all the way around the planet. And meanwhile, as it’s coasting, Earth will turn and when it comes round next time, it will [pass] over the Yucatan,” he said.
Miller noted that if the satellites are high enough to be in the sunlight, and it’s after sunset in Cayman, we should be able to see these satellites from the Cayman Islands as they pass over the Yucatan.
However, he cautioned, “This is all dependent on a lot of things, such as the exact launch time of the rocket… on Wednesday evening.”
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Alas , the rocket successfully lifted off at the beginning of its launch window at 3:01pm local time today…. No satellites for us tonight!
Ty Miller,
Cayman Islands Astronomical Society