SpaceX is making the most of a weather delay to an astronaut launch from Florida’s Space Coast. The company is preparing to launch a batch of Starlink satellites from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday morning.

The Leap Day launch of the Starlink 6-40 mission will add another 23 Starlink Version 2 Mini satellites to the growing low Earth orbit constellation. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 is set for 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 UTC).

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour before liftoff.

About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster, tail number B1076, will land on the droneship ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ which is positioned in the Atlantic Ocean. This will be the 11th flight of this booster and the 73rd landing for this droneship.

The launch on Thursday is only possible because poor weather out in the Atlantic Ocean much farther north. Launch weather forecasters predicted that if a mid-flight abort were necessary during the ascent of the Crew-8 mission to the International Space Station, conditions would be unsafe for the recovery crew and the astronauts within the Crew Dragon spacecraft.

NASA and SpaceX pivoted to a new target launch date of March 2 for that mission.