The next 60 Starlink Internet satellites await a Cape Canaveral ride in space aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday night, while SpaceX seeks government authority to expand network services from homes and offices to planes, ships and trucks.
SpaceX tested a 229-foot (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket on Route 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Monday at 18:00 EST (2300 GMT). Climb-in clamps held the loader to the ground while the engines produced 1.7 million pounds of push for a few seconds.
The static fire test was an important milestone before SpaceX proceeded with the launch of the Falcon 9 and 60 Starlink payloads at 21:58 EST Tuesday (0258 GMT Wednesday). SpaceX confirmed in a tweet Monday night that the launch has stayed on schedule.
The overnight launch of the rocket will add another 60 Starlink satellites to the ever-growing internet network, which will push it closer to full commercial service. The satellites already provide internet services to consumers on a beta test basis.
To date, SpaceX has launched 1,205 Starlink satellites, including prototypes. More than 1,100 of the Starlink satellites appear to be functioning, discounting test spaces and failed satellites, according to a catalog maintained by Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and highly respected space activity tracker.
The Starlink network could eventually number more than 10,000 satellites, but the first set of Starlinks would have 1,584 satellites orbiting 550 kilometers above the earth on paths tilted 53 degrees to the equator. SpaceX has been approved by the Federal Communications Commission for approximately 12,000 Starlink satellites at a variety of altitudes and slopes, all within a few hundred kilometers of the planet. The low altitude enables the satellites to deliver high-speed connections with low latency to customers, and helps ensure that the spacecraft naturally re-enters the atmosphere faster than when they would fly farther from Earth.
Starlink already provides interim beta services in high-latitude regions, such as the northern United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. More Starlink launches this year will allow for an expanded coverage area.
SpaceX accepts pre-orders from prospective Starlink consumers, who can pay $ 99 to book their place in the queue to get Starlink service when available in their area. For people in the southern United States and other regions with lower latitude, it should arrive by late 2021, SpaceX says.
Once confirmed, customers will pay $ 499 for a Starlink antenna and modem, plus $ 50 for shipping and handling, SpaceX says. A subscription costs $ 99 per month.
The launch Tuesday night will take place less than six days after SpaceX’s latest Falcon 9 launch, which also orbited 60 Starlink spacecraft from Route 39A in the Kennedy Space Center, a few miles north of Route 40. SpaceX uses both launch facilities on the Florida Coast Coast.
Another Falcon 9 launch from Route 39A – which again carries Starlink satellites – is scheduled for Saturday at 05:06 EST (1006 GMT).
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket, which will be launched on Tuesday evening, is going northeast of Cape Canaveral to deliver the 60 Starlinks to a range of 260 to 284 kilometers high. The first phase will take about two-and-a-half minutes to complete in the mission and fall away from the upper phase of the Falcon 9, departing after a vertical landing on SpaceX’s drone ship “Read Only parked east of the Atlantic Ocean. of Charleston, South Carolina.
The first shift to fly on Tuesday was launched on five previous missions and begins with the launch of the Crew Dragon test flight last year with astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken. The payload cap, which protects the Starlink satellites during the first few minutes of launch, contains half recovered from two previous missions, and the other half with one launch on its record.
Two additional SpaceX vessels were sent to the Atlantic to pick up the cargo halves after Tuesday night’s launch.
The Starlink satellites are being built by SpaceX in Redmond, Washington, and each spacecraft weighs about a quarter of a ton when lifted. They are equipped with power-powered solar wings, krypton ion propellers for propulsion and sights to dim their brightness for humans on the ground, a mitigation added to Starlink satellites last year after astronomers said the spacecraft would destroy some telescopic observations .
Amid SpaceX’s high-pace launch cadences, the company is expanding production of ground terminals, routers and other equipment for shipping to Starlink customers. According to a mailing list posted online last week, SpaceX plans to build a manufacturing center in Austin, Texas, to produce Starlink hardware for consumers.
SpaceX submitted a request to the FCC on Friday for approval to deploy end-user stations they call ‘Earth Stations in Motion’, or ESIMs. The mobile terminals would be mounted on land vehicles, ships and aircraft, SpaceX said in the submission.
The mobile stations are ‘electrically identical’ to the $ 499 terminal already approved by the FCC for fixed consumers. The federal regulator had earlier issued a license for SpaceX to set up up to a million end-user earth stations designed for homes, businesses, schools, hospitals and other types of customers.
The Starlink terminals, designed for mobility, have ‘attachments that allow them to be installed on vehicles, vessels and aircraft’, SpaceX wrote in the FCC documentation. The terminal will communicate with Starlink satellites visible above 25 degrees in the air.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, tweeted on Monday that the mobile terminal will not be used in smaller vehicles, such as Tesla cars, because “our terminal is far too large.”
“It’s for planes, ships, big trucks and RVs,” Musk tweeted.
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