SpaceX has agreed to keep Poland within Starlink’s European roaming region after the country’s foreign minister threatened to reconsider roughly $50 million in annual payments to the company.
Tag: Starlink
SpaceX Conducts 45th Starlink Mission of 2026
Spaceflight Now reports, “SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday night to send a batch of its Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit … Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East happened at 7:46 p.m. PDT (10:46 p.m. EDT / 0246 UTC). The rocket flew on a south-southwesterly trajectory upon leaving the pad.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)
Video
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 24 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg. (Launch occurs at the 30:00 mark)
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)
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 Says it is Limiting Ukrainian Use of Starlink for Military Purposes
The Wall Street Journal (Subscription Publication) reports SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company had moved to limit the use of its satellite-internet service, Starlink, for military purposes.
Full Story (Wall Street Journal – Subscription Publication)
SpaceX Launches Falcon 9 from California
The AP reports that a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force base Thursday carrying 53 Stalink satellites. “The satellites were later deployed from the rocket’s second stage.” Starlink provides broadband internet service based on a constellation of such satellites all around the world.
Full Story (Associated Press)
Video
On Thursday, October 27, at at 6:14 p.m. PT, SpaceX launched 53 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
SpaceX Falcon 9 Starlink Mission Launch Successful
Florida Today reports SpaceX’s Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 10:50 a.m. Thursday morning, marking the 63rd flight for the rocket. The payload being delivered into orbit is an extension of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellite Internet system.
Full Story (Florida Today)
Video
On Thursday, October 20, at 10:50 a.m. ET, SpaceX launched more Starlink satellites.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
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)
Video
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)