Tag: Starlink Satellites

SpaceX Launches Starlinks from East Coast, 10th Rideshare Mission from West Coast On Same Day

Aviation Week reports, “SpaceX completed a pair of overlapping Falcon 9 missions on March 4.”  One mission launched 23 Starlink satellites into orbit from Florida, while another, Transporter-10, launched from the West Coast on a mission to deploy rideshare satellites.  According to the report, “the launches occurred at 5:05 p.m. and 6:56 p.m. EST from Vandenberg’s SFB’s Space Launch Complex 4 East and Cape Canaveral SFS’s Space Launch Complex 40, respectively.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)

 

Videos

SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Transporter-10 rideshare mission
(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)


SpaceX Starlink 143 launch and Falcon 9 first stage landing, 4 March 2024
(SciNews; YouTube)

SpaceX Falcon 9 Makes Rare Leap Day Launch

Spaceflight Now reports that at 10:30 a.m. EST Thursday, SpaceX launched 23 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.  The Starlink 6-40 mission marked a rare Leap Day launch from the Cape, as it “was just the fourth time in history that an orbital launch took place on Feb. 29.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

Video

SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites on Leap Day
(VideoFromSpace; YouTube)

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches 24 Starlink Satellites

Spaceflight Now reports “SpaceX launched its biggest batch of second generation Starlink Satellites to date on Sunday.” The launch was the first featuring a batch of 24 Starlink V2 Mini satellites, the most launched at once to date. Liftoff occurred at 5:06 p.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

 

 

 

Video

SpaceX launches a Falcon 9 rocket with 24 second-generation Starlink internet satellites
(Spaceflight Now; YouTube)

SpaceX Considers Spinning Off Starlink Via IPA Next Year

Bloomberg reports that SpaceX is “discussing an initial public offering for its fast-growing Starlink satellite business as soon as late 2024, people with knowledge of the matter said, in a bid to capitalize on robust demand for communications via space.” To get ready, SpaceX “has been moving the satellite unit’s assets to a wholly owned subsidiary that would ultimately be spun off in the IPO, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the conversations are private.”
Full Story (Bloomberg)

SpaceX Launches Starlink Satellites

UPI reports that SpaceX “launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into space early Friday from Florida’s famed Cape Canaveral, after having scrubbed the launch of a separate mission Thursday night.” The rocket “launched at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.” Up to four backup launch opportunities “were available to SpaceX to launch the nearly two dozen satellites into low-Earth orbit where they will join Starlink’s constellation of orbitals that provide high-speed, low-latency Internet around the globe.” The launch occurred shortly “after SpaceX scrubbed a Flacon Heavy mission that was to liftoff late Thursday.” No reason for “aborting the mission was immediately made public.” The first-stage booster “used in the early Friday launch flew its 15th mission.” After deploying its payload “into space, the launch vehicle returned to Earth where it landed upon the autonomous A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.” The launch “was SpaceX’s 50th of the year and 249th overall.”
Full Story (UPI)

 

Video

Starlink Mission, 26 August 2023
(SpaceX; YouTube)

SpaceX Launches 22 Starlink Satellites After Scrubbing Separate Mission

UPI reports that SpaceX “launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a payload of 22 Starlink satellites into space early Friday from Florida’s famed Cape Canaveral, after having scrubbed the launch of a separate mission Thursday night.” The rocket “launched at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.” Up to four backup launch opportunities “were available to SpaceX to launch the nearly two dozen satellites into low-Earth orbit where they will join Starlink’s constellation of orbitals that provide high-speed, low-latency Internet around the globe.” The launch occurred shortly “after SpaceX scrubbed a Flacon Heavy mission that was to liftoff late Thursday.” No reason for “aborting the mission was immediately made public.” The first-stage booster “used in the early Friday launch flew its 15th mission.” After deploying its payload “into space, the launch vehicle returned to Earth where it landed upon the autonomous A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.” The launch “was SpaceX’s 50th of the year and 249th overall.”
Full Story (UPI)

SpaceX Launches Another Batch of Starlink Satellites

UPI reports that SpaceX “launched its latest round of Starlink communication satellites from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida just before midnight Saturday.” The mission had “been scrubbed Friday, with SpaceX saying a static fire of the rocket’s main engines would need to be performed, giving a hint to a possible rocket hardware issue.” The Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage, which “launched the 54 satellites, safely returned to Earth, touching down on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, marking a record-tying 16th safe launch and landing of the rocket’s booster.” The first stage of another Falcon 9 rocket “launched on July 9 also landed safely on Earth for the 16th time, setting a record for the company. Saturday’s launch tied that record.” The return of Saturday’s first stage “marked the 207th time SpaceX has safely returned the first stage.”
Full Story (UPI)

 

Video

Starlink Mission
On Saturday, July 15 at 11:50 p.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 54 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)

Collision Avoidance Maneuvers by Starlink Satellites Increasing Exponentially

SPACE reports Starlink satellites had “to swerve more than 25,000 times between Dec. 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023 to avoid potentially dangerous approaches to other spacecraft and orbital debris,” according to filings with the Federal Communications Commission. The frequency of collision avoidance maneuvers by Starlink satellites is “about double the number of avoidance maneuvers reported by SpaceX in the previous six-month period that ran from June to November 2022.” University of Southampton astronautics professor Hugh Lewis says, “Right now, the number of maneuvers is growing exponentially. It’s been doubling every six months, and the problem with exponential trends is that they get to very large numbers very quickly.” Lewis predicts that regulatory intervention will be necessary to control the growth of space debris in low earth orbit, or else “collisions will soon become a regular part of the space business.”
Full Story (SPACE)

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)