Tag: Satellites

SpaceX Launches from Each Coast

Spaceflight Now reported that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket “delivered 51 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit Friday after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, adding to SpaceX’s global broadband network that reaches all seven continents.” The Starlink 2-5 mission lifted off “from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg, a military spaceport about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.” Space News reported that SpaceX also launched a Falcon 9 carrying the Inmarsat-6 F2 (I-6 F2) satellite at 10:59 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. I-6 F2 separated “from the rocket about 32 minutes later, and will use onboard electric propulsion to get to its geostationary orbit slot over the Atlantic Ocean over the next several months.” Inmarsat said I-6 F2 “is slated to enter service in 2024 following rigorous in-orbit tests.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)
More Info (Space News)

 

 Videos

On Friday, February 17 at 11:12 a.m. PT, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 51 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

On Friday, February 17 at 10:59 p.m. ET, SpaceX launched the Inmarsat I-6 F2 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

SpaceX Launches Starlink Group from Space Coast

The Orlando (FL) Sentinel reports SpaceX launched its latest batch of Starlink satellites from the Space Coast early Sunday. A Falcon 9 with “55 of the internet satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 12:10 a.m.” All eight of the “Space Coast launches this year so far have been from SpaceX, which has also flown two missions from California on its way to what Elon Musk said could be 100 flights for the company for 2023.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)

 

 Video

On Sunday, February 12 at 12:10 a.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 55 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida
(SpaceX; YouTube)

Blue Origin Wins First NASA Contract for Mars Mission

Reuters reports that Blue Origin “was awarded its first interplanetary NASA contract on Thursday to launch a mission next year to study the magnetic field around Mars, the U.S. space agency and company said.” Plans call for Blue Origin’s “recently developed New Glenn heavy-lift rocket to blast off with NASA’s dual-spacecraft ESCAPADE mission in late 2024 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the agency said.” It will take “the identical twin ESCAPADEs, short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers, about 11 months to reach Mars orbit, where they will capture data from the planet’s magnetosphere and its interactions with solar radiation.” New Glenn, “with a reusable first stage designed to be flown on at least 25 missions, is named for pioneering NASA astronaut John Glenn, who became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962.”
Full Story (Reuters)

SpaceX Launches 40 More Internet Satellites

Spaceflight Now reports that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket “lifted off from Cape Canaveral Monday night with 40 more internet satellites for OneWeb, nudging the network closer to full operational capability.” The Falcon 9 booster “returned to Cape Canaveral for landing eight minutes later.” SpaceX delayed “the launch of a different Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California Monday night due to bad weather.” That mission was “supposed to launch just 35 minutes before the OneWeb mission from Cape Canaveral, but has now been rescheduled for liftoff Tuesday night.” The SpaceX launch team “working in a control center just outside the gate of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station began loading super-chilled, densified kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the Falcon 9 vehicle at T-minus 35 minutes.” Helium pressurant also “flowed into the rocket in the last half-hour of the countdown.” In the final “seven minutes before liftoff, the Falcon 9’s Merlin main engines were thermally conditioned for flight through a procedure known as ‘chilldown.’” The Falcon 9’s “guidance and range safety systems were also configured for launch.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

 Video

SpaceX launches the OneWeb Launch 16 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, Monday, January 9 at 11:50 p.m. ET.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

SpaceX to Launch OneWeb Satellites on Monday

The Orlando (FL) Sentinel reports SpaceX “is set for its second Space Coast launch of the year mission to send up more internet satellites for competitor OneWeb” on Monday after “a Sunday attempt was tabled so SpaceX could ‘complete prelaunch processing,’ the company posted on its Twitter account,” although the “vehicle and spacecraft are healthy.” The launch “was set to be the company’s 200th…since 2010, but may end up being the 201st with the delay as a Starlink launch is also on tap for Monday night, but from California,” and Space Launch Delta 45′s weather squadron “predicts better than 90% chance for good conditions” for the second attempt.
Full Story (Orlando (FL) Sentinel)

SpaceX Launches BlueWalker 3 Communications Satellite

SPACE reported that SpaceX “launched a novel – and colossal – commercial communications satellite into orbit late Saturday and set a new launch record for its Falcon 9 rocket at the same time.” The Falcon 9 “launched into orbit from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying 34 of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites and BlueWalker 3, a prototype satellite built by AST SpaceMobile that’s billed as the largest commercial communications array ever flown in space.” The BlueWalker 3 satellite “is the largest commercial antenna array launched into space. Its mission: to test new technology designed to provide global cellular phone service directly to users from space. The goal is to fill in coverage gaps and provide seamless high-speed phone and data service in underserved areas.”
Full Story (SPACE)

 

 Video

SpaceX launches 34 Starlink satellites and AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 satellite to orbit from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Saturday, 10 Sept. 2022 at 9:20 p.m. EDT.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

SpaceX Sets New Record with 40th Mission of the Year

USA Today reports that SpaceX on Sunday “launched 51 Starlink satellites and Spaceflight’s Sherpa-LTC, an orbital transfer vehicle, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Its 40th mission of the year set a record for the number of rockets launched in a calendar year.”
Full Story (USA Today)
 
 
 

 

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SpaceX launches 51 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 4 September 2022, at 10:09 p.m. ET.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

SpaceX Launches 46 More Starlink Satellites from Vandenberg

Spaceflight Now reports that SpaceX “launched a Falcon 9 rocket with 46 more Starlink internet satellites overnight Wednesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, completing a quartet of rapid-fire polar orbit Starlink missions from the West Coast spaceport since mid-July.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

 Video

SpaceX launches 46 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, 31 August 2022 at 10:40 p.m. PT.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

SpaceX Launches 53 More Starlink Satellites

Spaceflight Now reported that 53 new Starlink “internet satellites launched Friday from Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, adding more capacity to the largest fleet of spacecraft ever put into orbit.” The Falcon 9 rocket with the Starlink satellites “took off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 3:21:20 p.m. EDT (1921:20 GMT). Nine Merlin 1D engines powered the rocket off the pad with 1.7 million pounds of thrust, hauling more than 15 metric tons of payload into space.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

 Video

SpaceX launches 53 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. , 19 August 2022 at 3:21 p.m. ET.
(SpaceX; YouTube)