TL;DR: SpaceX is targeting two Florida launches on Oct. 1 — NASA's Crew-13 to the space station at 11:10 a.m. EDT and the classified NROL-97 mission on Falcon Heavy at 11:53 p.m. ET.

SpaceX has not launched from Florida since mid-September, but next week could bring two major flights within about 12 hours, according to the Orlando Sentinel reporting carried by ArcaMax Publishing.

Both missions are targeting Oct. 1 liftoffs, one in daylight and one just before midnight. The pairing would send four astronauts toward the International Space Station and send a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload toward orbit on the company's heavy-lift rocket.

If both dates hold, Central Florida residents could hear one or more sonic booms during booster returns. All three recoverable boosters are planned to come back to land about eight minutes after their respective liftoffs.

Flight Readiness Review clears Crew-13 to proceed

NASA, SpaceX and international partners polled "go" to continue preparations for Crew-13 after a Flight Readiness Review on Sept. 25 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, according to NASA.

That review examined SpaceX's transportation system, mission operations, support functions and readiness of the International Space Station to receive the incoming crew.

NASA said Crew-13 remains targeted to launch no earlier than 11:10 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 1, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

An earlier NASA update on Sept. 22 said teams would spend the following days completing prelaunch activities and intensive reviews to confirm the crew, station, Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 were ready.

The crew was scheduled to arrive at NASA Kennedy the day after the review to continue preparations from Astronaut Crew Quarters. NASA said the arrival would stream live on NASA Kennedy's YouTube channel.

More details were to be posted on the mission blog, @NASAKennedy on X and NASA Kennedy on Facebook.

Morning flight: Crew-13 aboard Dragon Grace

First up would be Crew-13, targeting 11:10 a.m. from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 aboard the Crew Dragon Grace, according to the Orlando Sentinel reporting carried by ArcaMax Publishing.

The flight would be the second trip to space for Grace. Its Falcon 9 booster is making its third trip to space.

Grace's first crew mission established the capsule in NASA's rotation. The spacecraft is now assigned to carry the four-member Crew-13 team for a months-long stay.

For an Oct. 1 launch, Crew-13 is expected to reach the orbiting laboratory in less than nine hours, with docking planned for about 8 p.m. to the forward-facing port of the Harmony module, according to NASA.

After arrival, Crew-13 will become members of the space station's Expedition 75. The incoming team is set to relieve Crew-12, whose members have been aboard since February.

Who is flying on Crew-13

The crew features NASA astronaut and commander Jessica Watkins, NASA astronaut and pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.

Watkins and Delaney will serve as spacecraft commander and pilot, respectively, while Kutryk and Teteryatnikov will serve as mission specialists, according to NASA.

Delaney, Kutryk and Teteryatnikov are all rookies, while Watkins was a member of the Crew-4 mission in 2022.

Delaney, 47, was raised in DeBary and attended DeLand and Deltona High Schools. His assignment makes the mission a home-state flight for a Central Floridian.

The quartet went into quarantine in Houston last week and was slated to arrive at Kennedy Space Center on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 26.

NASA said on Sept. 22 that the crew was in quarantine at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston. Canadian Space Agency information also described quarantine at Johnson as standard procedure before a space mission.

Why Crew-13 was rescheduled to October

Crew-13 had originally been scheduled to lift off Sept. 12, but an oxidizer leak in the Dragon spacecraft's propulsion system took that date off the table, according to Space.com.

NASA announced the leak in an Aug. 29 Commercial Crew Program blog post. The agency said at the time that the issue was detected during prelaunch processing.

SpaceX later replaced an oxidizer valve in Dragon's propulsion system. In a Sept. 16 social media post, NASA and SpaceX said the team had successfully completed that replacement after the leak was detected earlier in processing.

NASA announced Sept. 22 that Oct. 1 at 11:10 a.m. ET was the earliest new launch date. The mission team then moved into final prelaunch activities and reviews.

Night flight: Falcon Heavy with NROL-97

Then just before midnight, SpaceX plans to shift from crew operations to a national-security launch, according to the Orlando Sentinel reporting carried by ArcaMax Publishing.

The NROL-97 mission is targeting liftoff at 11:53 p.m. from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-A. A backup opportunity falls to Oct. 2 at 11:48 p.m.

The mission carries a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. No public details about the payload itself have been released.

The flight would be only the 14th ever flight of Falcon Heavy, but the third this year. It would also be the first NRO mission to fly on Falcon Heavy.

Seven previous national-security missions for the office flew on SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. Spaceflight Now noted before the launch window that the NROL-97 assignment followed 22 Falcon 9 missions for the office.

Reused side boosters and land landings

The two Falcon Heavy side boosters are flying for the second and fourth times. They previously flew Falcon Heavy missions for GOES-U, Viasat-3 F3 and NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

That Roman telescope flight was less than a month earlier, lifting off from Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 30.

After stage separation, the two side boosters are planned to land on Landing Zones 1 and 2 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The Crew-13 Falcon 9 booster will try to land back at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station site at Landing Zone 40. The combination would mark a first for the Space Coast, with three land-based booster recoveries targeted on the same calendar day.

Central Florida could therefore hear daytime and nighttime sonic booms. The reentries are expected about eight minutes after each launch.

Why the Space Coast has been quieter

The busy Oct. 1 plan comes during a period when Space Coast launches have been dialed back as the company focuses on preparing Starship and a Super Heavy launch tower near the Falcon Heavy pad, according to the Orlando Sentinel reporting carried by ArcaMax Publishing.

SpaceX had limited its Kennedy Space Center pad use to only Falcon Heavy missions while shifting all Falcon 9 launches to Cape Canaveral.

The company also stopped flying its frequent Starlink missions from Florida. Starlink missions on Falcon 9 are instead flying from California.

Future Starlink missions from Florida will wait for Starship. SpaceX is still aiming to launch the in-development heavy-lift rocket from Kennedy Space Center for the first time before the end of the year.

Before that Florida debut, the company has what would be the vehicle's first orbital launch ever, with a mission slated to fly from SpaceX's Texas test site Starbase as soon as Sept. 28.

NASA said a successful Texas flight could affect timing for later Florida operational work. The agency and SpaceX have framed the coming weeks as a transition from Falcon operations toward larger heavy-lift activity.

What happens next on the schedule

As of Sept. 25, both Oct. 1 targets remained plans rather than completed launches. NASA described Crew-13 as launching no earlier than the morning target.

The NROL-97 midnight target leaves only minutes before the calendar turns to Oct. 2. Its listed backup is late on Oct. 2.

Crew arrival activities, final reviews and prelaunch checkouts were the remaining milestones before launch day. NASA said updates would continue through its mission blog and Kennedy social channels.

If the schedule holds, Oct. 1 would pair a daytime human-spaceflight launch with a late-night national-security launch, three land-based booster landings and two different launch complexes in one Space Coast day.

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