Elon Musk was on Twitter earlier talking about how his long game for Tesla is actually inextricably intertwined with his plans for SpaceX. He has consistently stated that his ambition for SpaceX is to ultimately make humanity a multi-planetary species by setting up colonies on Mars and beyond. It turns out he wants fund this by selling off his Tesla stock in 10-20 years.

It is not the only measure SpaceX is taking to try and make the ‘strings of bright pearls’ less visible. 

For the first time, all Starlink satellites on this flight will be equipped with a visor to block sunlight from hitting the brightest spots of the spacecraft – a measure SpaceX has taken as part of our work with leading astronomical groups to mitigate satellite reflectivity.

Astronomers have previously complained that the fleets of Starlink satellites could obstruct both optical and radio observations of space. Hopefully this will help go some way to fixing this.

The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Starlink satellites is on the launchpad.

Here’s a handy diagram put together by SpaceX showing what to expect following lift-off today.

We’ll be posting the live stream here as soon as it’s available. Until then we’ll have all the latest updates relating to the launch at the Kennedy Space Center.

Weather conditions are currently 60 per cent favourable in Florida.

Welcome to The Independent‘s coverage of the SpaceX launch today. Liftoff is at 3.59pm UK time, or 11.59am eastern time.