SpaceX queues up KSC launch Sunday and Canaveral launch Monday

SpaceX is set for a Sunday evening launch from Kennedy Space Center with a Monday launch attempt from Cape Canaveral on tap.

First up is a Falcon 9 rocket from KSC's Launch Pad 39-A on the Optux X/TD7 mission to launch a geostationary communication satellite built by Northrop Grumman for the Australian company Optus at 5:28 p.m. during a 4:29-6:27 p.m. launch window, with a backup Nov. 18 from 4:29-6:27 p.m.

Space Launch Delta 45's weather squadron forecasts better than 95% chances for good launch conditions on both Sunday and Monday.

This is the 16th mission for the first-stage booster, which was used on Crew-5, CRS-28 and NG-20 among other missions. The company will aim for a recovery landing downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean.

Next up on the Space Coast is a Falcon 9 on the GSAT-20 mission to send a communication satellite for the Indian Space Research Organization to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Space Launch Complex 40 during launch window from 1:31-3:20 p.m. and backup on Tuesday during a two-hour window that opens at 4:33 a.m.

The first-stage booster for the mission is flying for the 19th time with a recovery landing downrange planned on droneship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean.

This will be the 80th and 81st launches from the Space Coast, will all but five from SpaceX.

SpaceX also has a Starlink launch at 12:47 a.m. Tuesday from California and the much anticipated sixth launch of its in-development Starship and Super Heavy on Tuesday during a 30-minute launch window that opens at 5 p.m. from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.

On November 16, 1974, humans sent their first message to the stars in an attempt to contact extraterrestrials. They did this using what was then the largest radio telescope in the world, located at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. A group of scientists led by Frank Drake and Carl Sagan sent their message to the M13 star cluster. The message was written in binary code and contained information about human DNA. It also included figures of a human, the solar system and the Arecibo telescope. The idea was that if any aliens were to receive the signal and figure out how to decode it, they would know where it came from. Because M13 is 25,000 light-years away, it will take 25,000 years for any M13 aliens to hear our message — if they are even out there. The Arecibo message is only one of several messages intended for extraterrestrials. We have also included messages on several spacecraft, such as Pioneer and Voyager.