CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION — Under good weather conditions, SpaceX launched a communications satellite for India on Monday afternoon.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket sent up the NSIL GSAT-N2 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, stated the company.

The two-hour window for this launch opened at 1:31 p.m. ET.

The 45th Weather Squadron predicted about a 95% chance of good liftoff conditions with the only concern being the cumulus cloud rule.

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

If the launch was scrubbed, the next try would have been Tuesday at 4:33 a.m. ET..

Going up

This Falcon 9’s first-stage booster, named B1073, has 18 missions under its belt, including a lunar mission from a joint launch by a private Japanese company and NASA.

• ispace’s HAKUTO-R and NASA’s Lunar Flashlight
• SES-22 telecommunications satellite
• Amazonas Nexus
• CRS-27
• Bandwagon-1
• 13 Starlink satellite missions

After the stage separation, it landed on the SpaceX droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean.

About the mission

The GSAT-N2 is a communications satellites from NewSpace India Limited, a government company owned by India’s Department of Space.

“GSAT-N2 is set to enhance broadband services and in-flight connectivity (IFC) across the Indian region. This satellite, featuring multiple spot beams and wideband Ka x Ka transponders, aims to support a large subscriber base with small user terminals, significantly boosting system throughput through its multi-beam architecture which allows frequency reuse,” stated the company in a press release in June of this year.

The satellite is expected to have 14 years of mission life to it.