[ad_1]
The 100th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket delivered 60 satellites into orbit for SpaceX’s Starlink network Tuesday night, adding another building block to a planned fleet of thousands of solar-powered space link stations to broadcast broadband connectivity throughout. the world.
Last Tuesday’s successful mission also set a new record for SpaceX’s rocket reuse program, one that could be halted again within months if SpaceX maintains its feverish launch cadence. For the first time, a reusable Falcon 9 repeater completed its seventh journey into space and back on Tuesday night’s flight.
The Falcon 9 rocket fired its nine kerosene-powered Merlin 1D engines and set off with a roar from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Pad 40 at 9:13:12 PM EST on Tuesday (0213:12 GMT Wednesday). The 70-meter (229 ft) tall launcher leapt through a broken cloud layer above the platform and launched northeast from Cape Canaveral to align with the mission’s targeted orbital aircraft within the Starlink network.
The rocket’s 15-story first stage booster fell from the top tier of Falcon 9 about two and a half after takeoff, setting a course for a controlled landing on SpaceX’s drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” positioned at several hundred miles northeast of Cape Canaveral in the Atlantic Ocean,
The booster – designated B1049 in SpaceX’s rocket inventory – re-ignited its central engine for a braking maneuver just before landing, then extended a landing gear before settling on the drone ship’s deck. The seemingly flawless landing punctuated the seventh mission of the B1049 vehicle, making it SpaceX’s “fleet leader”.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, said the newest version of the Falcon 9 booster could fly 10 times without any major refurbishment and possibly 100 times with periodic reviews.
Flying approximately 140 miles over the North Atlantic, 60 new Internet Starlink satellites have been deployed from the upper stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
This brings the total number of Starlinks launched from May 2019 to 955.https: //t.co/5fFiWvJxb4 pic.twitter.com/f2DHahj1j1
– Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) November 25, 2020
Along with its reused first upgrade stage, the Falcon 9 was launched with a recycled clamshell payload liner, half of which flew on two previous missions. The other half of the fairing was veteran before launch.
Two salvage ships were sent out to sea to retrieve fairing halves from Tuesday night’s mission after they parachuted to Earth from space.
As the repeater and fairing shells descended to Earth, the upper stage of the Falcon 9 guided the 60 flat-screen Starlink satellites into a 53-degree tilted transfer orbit relative to the equator. About 15 minutes after takeoff, the upper stage released the retention rods to allow the group of 60 spacecraft to fly free from the rocket over the North Atlantic Ocean.
The Falcon 9 aimed to position the satellites in an elliptical orbit between 132 miles (213 kilometers) and 227 miles (366 kilometers). A member of the SpaceX launch team confirmed in a mission audio loop that the rocket has reached an orbital insertion on the target.
The launch was previously scheduled for Saturday night, then postponed until Sunday, when SpaceX canceled a launch attempt due to concerns about the “mission guarantee”. SpaceX bypassed a launch opportunity on Monday due to a forecast of poor conditions in the Falcon 9 offshore landing zone, setting the stage for Tuesday’s countdown.
The launch on Tuesday evening was the 23rd SpaceX mission of 2020, extending the company’s record flight cadence. The previous record for the most SpaceX launches in a year was 21 missions in 2018.
The quarter-ton Starlink satellites, built by SpaceX in Redmond, Washington, were supposed to deploy the energy-generating solar panels and ignite their krypton ion thrusters to begin lifting their orbits to an operating altitude of 341 miles ( 550 kilometers), where they will. join more than 800 other Starlink relay stations to broadcast broadband Internet signals to most of the populated world.
With the launch on Sunday, SpaceX has deployed 955 Starlink satellites into orbit.
SpaceX plans to manage an initial block of approximately 1,500 Starlink satellites in orbit 341 miles above Earth. The company, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to field a fleet of up to 12,000 small Starlink broadband stations operating in the Ku-band, Ka-band and V-band frequencies.
There are also preliminary plans for an even larger fleet of 30,000 additional Starlink satellites, but a network of that size has not been cleared by the FCC.
Flying approximately 140 miles over the North Atlantic, 60 new Internet Starlink satellites have been deployed from the upper stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
This brings the total number of Starlinks launched from May 2019 to 955.https: //t.co/5fFiWvJxb4 pic.twitter.com/f2DHahj1j1
– Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) November 25, 2020
SpaceX says the Starlink network, designed for low-latency Internet service, has entered a beta testing phase in several US states and Canada.
“Last month, SpaceX launched its” Better Than Nothing Beta “testing program,” the company said in a post on its website. “Service invitations were sent to a portion of those who requested availability updates on Starlink.com and who live in serviceable areas. A couple of weeks ago, Canada granted regulatory approval to Starlink and last week SpaceX rolled out the service in parts of southern Canada. “
The “invitation-only” beta testing program focuses on testing Starlink connectivity in rural and remote areas of the northern United States and southern Canada, said Kate Tice, SpaceX engineer who co-hosted the launch webcast of the company Tuesday evening.
“As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our network software, the data rates, latency and uptime will improve dramatically,” said Tice.
Latency of SpaceX projects on the Starlink network will drop to around 16-19 milliseconds by mid-2019, Tice said.
“At our current pace, we plan to expand our beta significantly early next year, in the late January-February period,” he said.
Email the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
[ad_2]
Source link
