BLASTOFF! SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched 60 more mini internet satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Monday night. https://abcn.ws/36r7JOC
If all goes to plan, this mission will be just the first of as many as 20 Starlink launches this year as SpaceX builds up a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit to provide global Internet service. SpaceX may begin to offer “bumpy” service by the middle of this year to some consumers.
Following this next launch, scheduled for 9:19pm ET Monday (02:19 UTC Tuesday), SpaceX will have a constellation of nearly 180 satellites in low-Earth orbit, each weighing a little more than 220kg. This will make the company simultaneously the world’s largest private satellite operator (eclipsing Planet Labs), while also being the most active private launch company.
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Image Source: SpaceX
SpaceX’s first mission of 2020 will deploy Starlink satellites on Monday, January 6 –It will mark the first official launch supported by the new United States Space Force. A Falcon 9 rocket will lift off at 9:20 p.m. EST from Pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. SpaceX conducted a static-fire test yesterday to prepare the rocket for the Starlink-2 mission.
Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched a Starlink mission, the Iridium-8 mission, and the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission pic.twitter.com/QdailzdG4o— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 4, 2020
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX on Saturday fired up the rocket that will ferry the company’s next batch of Starlink satellites into space.
The company conducted a static-fire test on Saturday (Jan. 4) of a Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the company said on Twitter. That rocket is expected to send 60 Starlink internet satellites into space no earlier than Monday (Jan. 6), marking the first launch of the year from Florida’s Space Coast.
The best way to distribute quantum entanglement around the globe is via a massive constellation of orbiting satellites, physicists say.
Forecasters predict near-ideal weather conditions Monday night for the first launch at Cape Canaveral this year, when SpaceX plans to send another 60 Starlink broadband satellites into orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket.
FULL STORY: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/01/02/good-weather-predicted…h-of-2020/
The final Rockot booster converted from an intercontinental ballistic missile launched into space Friday (Dec. 27) carrying a trio Russian satellites and a military payload into orbit.
The Rockot, a launch vehicle based on Russia’s RS-18 ballistic missile, launched three Gonets-M communications satellites into space from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. The rocket also reportedly carried a military payload called Blits-M, a glass sphere designed to serve as a laser reflector, according to Russianspaceweb.com, which tracks the Russian space industry.
WASHINGTON — Iridium Communications completed disposal of the last of its 65 working legacy satellites Dec. 28, while leaving open the possibility of paying an active-debris-removal company to deorbit 30 that failed in the decades since the operator deployed its first-generation constellation.
McLean, Virginia-based Iridium started deorbiting its first constellation, built by Motorola and Lockheed Martin, in 2017, as it replaced them with second-generation satellites from Thales Alenia Space.
Of the 95 satellites launched between 1997 and 2002, 30 malfunctioned and remain stuck in low Earth orbit, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
China launched its largest-ever rocket this week: The Long March-5 Y3 rocket took off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in south China’s Hainan Province, carrying a Shijian-20 satellite. The launch took place at 8:45 p.m. Beijing time on Friday night, as reported by China’s state news agency Xinhua. Just over half an hour later, the satellite achieved its planned orbit and the China National Space Administration (CNSA) declared the mission a success.
The rocket stands at 57 meters (187 feet) tall, and is 5 meters in diameter around its core stage, with four boosters each of which is 3.35 meters in diameter. This makes the Long March-5 the largest Chinese carrier rocket to date, with a total weight of 870 tonnes and producing thrust of over 1000 tonnes at takeoff.
The two-stage rocket can carry a payload of up to 25 tonnes into low Earth orbit. Alternatively, for more distant launches it can carry 14 tonnes into geostationary transfer orbit, which is an elliptical orbit that is used to reach the geosynchronous orbit which holds most satellites. Looking ahead to potential missions to the Moon and Mars, the rocket is also designed to carry up to eight tonnes into Earth-Moon transfer orbit, or up to five tones into Earth-Mars transfer orbit.
More than half a million pieces of man-made space junk are orbiting the Earth at speeds up to 17,500 miles per hour. Even the tiniest pieces have the potential to destroy any of the 1,700 satellites circling the Earth.
Nuclear physicist Taylor Wilson joined the Air Force Space Command to see how a growing military and commercial space presence threatens the ubiquitous satellites, which are essential to humanity’s digital way of life.
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