A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 27 Starlink craft is scheduled to lift off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base today, during a nearly two-hour window that opens at 12:03 p.m. EST (1703 GMT; 9:03 a.m. local time). SpaceX will webcast the action live via its X account, beginning about five minutes before launch.

The last time a Starship upper stage failed was in March last year, as it was reentering Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, but rarely has a SpaceX mishap caused widespread disruptions to air traffic.

The US has grounded SpaceX's giant Starship rocket while an investigation is carried out into why it exploded during its latest test flight. The rocket's upper stage dramatically broke up and disintegrated over the Caribbean after launching from Texas on Thursday,