SPACE reports that early Monday morning, SpaceX launched 21 more of its Starlink broadband satellites “atop a Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.” Liftoff occurred at 3:23 a.m. ET, which was “streamed live via SpaceX’s account on X (formerly known as Twitter).” Eight and half minutes after launch, the Falcon 9’s first stage made a successful “vertical landing at sea on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.” Just over an hour after launch, the Falcon 9’s upper stage “deployed the 21 Starlink spacecraft into low Earth orbit.” Full Story (SPACE)
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SpaceX Starlink 112 launch and Falcon 9 first stage landing, 9 October 2023
(SciNews; YouTube)
FlightGlobal reports that Collins Aerospace “has now opened ‘The Grid,’ a long-planned Illinois facility that houses its development of electric and hybrid-electric propulsion technologies for future aircraft.” The aerospace supplier “had previously intended to open the site in the city of Rockford in 2020.” But Collins “slowed some of its electric propulsion work during the Covid-19 pandemic.” The announced opening happened on Wednesday, with the site described as a “$50 million advanced electric power systems lab” focused on hybrid- and more-electric systems. Encompassing 2,323sq m (25,000sq ft) of space, the site “will initially support testing of equipment at power levels reaching 8MW.” Collins already “supplies massive generators to aircraft including Boeing’s 787 and has in recent years amped up its development of new electric aircraft systems.” It recently “developed a 1MW electric motor as part of a broader RTX project to modify a De Havilland Canada Dash 8-100 regional aircraft with a hybrid-electric propulsion system.” Pratt & Whitney Canada “is assisting with that project, which involves replacing one of the Dash 8’s P&WC PW120A turboprops with a hybrid-electric powertrain.” The companies “delayed the project during the Covid-19 pandemic and have recently said they aim for the Dash 8 to get airborne with the hybrid system for the first time in 2024.” Separately, Collins and Pratt & Whitney “are jointly developing a broader line hybrid-electric systems for the emerging urban air mobility sector.” Full Story (FlightGlobal)
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Collins Aerospace opens advanced electric power systems lab, The Grid
(Collins Aerospace; YouTube)
SPACE reports that SpaceX “launched 22 more of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit early this morning (Oct. 5), on the company’s 70th orbital mission of the year.” The Starlink spacecraft “lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight at 1:36 a.m. EDT (0536 GMT).” The rocket had originally “been targeted to launch on Wednesday at 10:45 p.m. EDT (0245 GMT on Oct. 5), but was delayed several hours by poor weather conditions.” As to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage “returned to Earth for a vertical landing at sea on the SpaceX drone ship Just Read the Instructions about 8.5 minutes after launch.” It was the eighth “liftoff and landing for this Falcon 9 first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description.” This morning’s flight “was the 70th orbital mission for SpaceX in 2023. The majority of those launches have been dedicated to building out the Starlink megaconstellation, which currently consists of more than 4,800 operational satellites.” Full Story (SPACE)
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SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with Starlink internet satellites
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)
