SpaceX successfully launched another 60 Starlink internet satellites from Cape Canaveral on Monday night, but lost the Falcon 9 rocket’s reusable first phase booster during a landing attempt on a drone ship parked in the Atlantic Ocean.
The 229-foot-long (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket struck off Route 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Station at 22:59:37 EST Monday (0359: 37 GMT), a day after the weather continued the mission Earth .
The kerosene-powered rocket is shot from the northeast direction with 1.7 million pounds of thrust from nine Merlin main engines on a clear late-night sky over the Space Coast in Florida at SpaceX’s fifth Falcon 9 launch of the year.
The first phase completed its work two-and-a-half minutes after the lift, and fell away moments before the Falcon 9 set fire to its one-engine-second car around the 60 flat-panel Starlink satellites in a to deliver job.
The booster lengthens grille fins and falls down a ballistic trajectory, then aimed for diving back into the atmosphere. The first phase is programmed to fire three of its nine Merlin engines for an entry-level firing, and then re-ignite a single engine for a final brake maneuver just before a propulsive landing on SpaceX’s drone “Of course I like still from you “posted, about 400 kilometers (630 kilometers) en route from Cape Canaveral.
But something seems to be wrong with the entry. A live video input from a camera on board showed the rocket burning a fiery plume behind the end of the entrance, moments before telemetry data was cut off from the vehicle. A camera from SpaceX’s drone showed an orange glow in the sky when the rocket allegedly crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
The booster on Monday’s mission – B1059 – was on its sixth voyage into space. According to SpaceX, the latest version of the Falcon 9 booster can make ten flights with only inspections and minor overhauls between missions, and it can fly after a major overhaul at additional launches.
There was an unusual signature at the end of the Falcon 9 charger’s burn tonight, followed seconds later by the end of the telemetry from the rocket.
The booster crashed in the Atlantic Ocean near SpaceX’s drone. Https://t.co/iSV3bbx5ro pic.twitter.com/HqY06KmxiL
– Space Fly Now (@SpaceflightNow) 16 February 2021
SpaceX’s most used Falcon 9 booster has flown eight times.
The repair and reuse of the first phases of Falcon 9 is unmatched in the launch industry. No other commercial launch company has landed and reused boosts on class missions. With the launch of Monday night, SpaceX Falcon booster cores have recovered 74 times since 2015, including 24 successful landings since the last time the company lost a first phase in March 2020.
The loss of a rocket stage will almost certainly yield an investigation at SpaceX, and it could affect the company’s launch schedule in the short term. SpaceX has six Falcon 9 boosters left in its inventory. Three of them are earmarked for future missions for NASA and the US space force: SpaceX’s next crew will launch to the International Space Station in April, starting with a GPS satellite and NASA asteroid probe in July.
SpaceX is still building Falcon cores, including boosters for the next three-time Falcon Heavy launch later this year, but no one is about to reach the launch platform.
Although the once-experimental rocket landings are a secondary objective for each mission, the successful recovery of Falcon boosters is more important than ever for SpaceX’s ability to maintain the launch pace at a high rate, especially for flights at the Starlink Internet Network added. The launch Monday night was the third of SpaceX in less than a month dedicated to the $ 1 million Starlink program, and officials planned two more Starlink missions before the end of February.
Before the start of Monday night, SpaceX planned the next Falcon 9 flight – using another first phase booster – from Route 39A into the Kennedy Space Center, as early as 12:55 EST (0555 GMT) Wednesday. It was not immediately clear how the booster’s failed landing would affect the plans.
SpaceX officials did not provide details as to why the booster did not land on the drone Monday night. The second phase reached the primary goal of the flight, using two burns from the Merlin Vacuum, or MVAC engine, to spray the 60 Starlink satellites into orbit at the target less than 300 kilometers above the earth.
SpaceX lost the Falcon 9 booster by descent.
A brief flash from the rocket’s landing fire was visible in a camera view from the drone.
This was the 6th flight of this reusable booster.
The top stage is safe in a track with 60 Starlink payloads. Https://t.co/iSV3bbx5ro pic.twitter.com/Z76zdXuyQq
– Space Fly Now (@SpaceflightNow) 16 February 2021
“We could not land the first phase, which was a raid, but our second phase did have two successful MVAC engine burns,” said Jessie Anderson, a SpaceX engineer who aired the company’s webcast Monday night. offered, said.
The upper stage set itself up for the release of the 60 Starlink satellites a little over an hour after the lift. The quarter-tonne satellites, built by SpaceX in Redmond, Washington, flew free of the second phase of the Falcon 9 before starting with automatic activation procedures to fold up their solar power and with the standard settlements after launch. start.
The satellites will turn on their krypton ion propellers to climb into their 550-kilometer operational orbit, with a slope of 53 degrees to the equator.
SpaceX has more than 1,000 satellites in its Starlink constellation, well on track to complete the implementation of the initial portion of 1,584 Starlink stations later this year. SpaceX will not stop there, with plans to send additional orbital “shells” of Starlink satellites into a polar orbit to enable worldwide coverage, with a first-generation fleet containing a total of 4,400 spacecraft.
The Federal Communications Commission has authorized SpaceX to eventually operate up to 12,000 Starlink satellites.
SpaceX began accepting pre-orders from prospective Starlink users last week, costing $ 99 a potential customer to align with the broadband service. 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.
SpaceX says the service should be available in the United States later this year.
Beta testing of the Starlink network has been going on for months in the northern United States, Canada. According to SpaceX, more than 10,000 users abroad are already in the Starlink service, according to a February 3 filing regularly with the FCC.
“Starlink continues to improve as SpaceX uses additional infrastructure and capability, with an average of two Starlink launches per month, to add significant on-track capacity, along with the activation of additional ports to improve performance and coverage areas of to expand the land across the land. ” .
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, tweeted on February 9 that SpaceX’s subsidiary Starlink will go public as soon as it has a predictable cash flow.
“Once we can predict cash flow fairly well, Starlink will give IPO,” Musk tweeted.
Until then, SpaceX will spend cash at a high rate to maintain the Starlink network’s high – speed deployment, from satellite launches at an average rate every few weeks to the production of ground terminals for users. SpaceX said the entire project could cost more than $ 10 billion, but Musk said revenue opportunities are even higher, and SpaceX provides resources to advance its daring plans to send humans to Mars.
SpaceX confirms the 60 Starlink broadband satellites successfully used in orbit from the top stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. This brings the total number of Starlinks to 1145 satellites. Https://t.co/iSV3bbx5ro pic.twitter.com/8GkPqSk5h1
– Space Fly Now (@SpaceflightNow) 16 February 2021
“SpaceX must go through a deep chasm of negative cash flow over the next year or so to make Starlink financially viable,” Musk tweeted. ‘Every new satellite constellation in history has gone bankrupt. We hope to be the first to do so. ”
The FCC allocated nearly $ 885 million in government subsidies to SpaceX in December through a program aimed at expanding broadband access for rural Americans.
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