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- Jonathan Amos
- BBC Science Correspondent
Image source,Getty Images / NurPhoto
The “One Arrow 143 Star” mission marked a new milestone for SpaceX’s Falcon 9 recoverable rocket.
The world record for how many satellites a rocket can take to space in a single time has been updated again. In Florida, USA, 143 satellites of different shapes and sizes were launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon rocket in a predetermined orbit.
This breaks the record of “104 stars with an arrow” set by an Indian company in 2017, and further shows that space activities are undergoing structural changes and more players are participating.
This change stems from innovation in component development, miniaturization, and low cost, many of which are sourced directly from consumer electronics such as smartphones. In other words, almost anyone can now build a satellite that is small but capable of operation.
Additionally, SpaceX has offered to launch a satellite at a price tag of just $ 1 million, and business opportunities are expected to come one after another.
Ten satellites were launched under SpaceX with the Falcon rocket and added to its constellation of giant “Starlink” communications satellites to provide broadband Internet services on the ground.
The San Francisco Planet company is the company that launched the largest number of satellites this time, with a total of 48 satellites launched. This is its latest batch of SuperDove satellites, capable of taking daily photos of the ground with a resolution of three to five meters from space. The new satellites increase the total number of planetary satellites in orbit to more than 200.
Image source,Planet Labs Inc
Planet uses its homing pigeon satellites to take pictures of Earth every day, like the Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala.
Taiwan’s self-developed satellite launched with the SpaceX Falcon rocket
The National Research Institute and Laboratory of the National Taiwan Space Center revealed that two Taiwanese self-developed satellites were accompanied by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday (January 24). They were the flying squirrel satellites developed by the Institute of Space Sciences of the Central National University. and Talesun Telecom Technology, the Yushan satellite produced by Lascom Corporation and the National Ocean University Department of Transportation Sciences.
Image source,Facebook / NCUinSpace
The official Central News Agency quoted the National Space Center as saying that the flying squirrel satellite measures 10 cm (cm) by 10 cm by 34 cm and weighs 4.5 kg. It can measure the plasma characteristics of the ionosphere in space and study how it interferes. with satellites and terrestrial radiocommunications. Improve the capabilities of the global positioning system (GPS); the Yushan satellite measures 10 cm by 10 cm by 17 cm and weighs 1.6 kg. Its uses include boats, dynamic vehicle monitoring, traffic control, emergency rescue, homeland security, etc.
The Taiwan National Space Center launched the “Cube Satellite Project” in 2017, selecting three groups of local teams to develop one satellite each, and the planned orbit is between 450 and 600 kilometers above sea level. The third in the plan, the Nut satellite developed by the Huwei National University of Science and Technology, is scheduled to be launched in June 2021 and will be used to track the flight paths of aircraft globally.
At the end of August 2017, Taiwan’s first self-developed Formosa Satellite 5 also commissioned Space X to launch with a Falcon 9 rocket, with an investment of NT $ 5.6 billion (US $ 200 million; RMB 1,295 billion). . The 450kg weight has been described by Taiwanese media as light, but associate professor Zhao Jiguang, head of CUHK’s Department of Space Science and Engineering, told the Central News Agency that the squirrel satellite flying machine weighs just less than 4000 excluding launch costs Ten thousand NT dollars, the research team hopes to solve the problem of communication interference with such a lightweight cubic satellite.
Image source,SWARM
“Internet of Things”: “SpaceBees” satellites will connect various computers on the ground.
Super homing pigeons are about the size of a shoe box, but most of the satellites carried by this Falcon rocket are only slightly larger than the Mike Cup, and some are even smaller than a paperback.
Swarm Technologies of the United States launched a satellite called SpaceBees this time, which measures just 10cm by 10cm by 2.5cm. These satellites will serve as telecommunications nodes connecting various ground equipment, which can be connected to various objects, such as migratory animals or shipping containers.
Image source,Spacex
The satellites are assembled into a dispenser, and when the rocket is raised to a specific altitude, the satellites are launched into orbit in sequence.
Some of the satellites on this Falcon rocket are as big as a suitcase, including several radar satellites. Radar is one of the main beneficiaries of this revolution in satellite parts.
Traditionally, radar satellites are bulky, weigh in tons, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to launch, meaning that only the military and large space agencies can afford to operate these satellites. But new materials and miniature “ready-to-go” components have dramatically reduced the size (less than 100kg) and the price (millions of dollars) of these aircraft.
Image source,IQPS
The Japan-developed iQPS radar satellite will deploy its large antenna after entering space.
Iceye from Finland, Capella and Umbra from the United States, and the iQPS satellites from Japan took off with the rocket on Sunday (January 24). These startups hope to form a constellation of satellites to rapidly and continuously transmit satellite photos of the Earth.
Compared to standard optical cameras, radar has the ability to penetrate clouds and detect the surface during the day and at night. We are entering a new era and satellites can pick up changes in the size of the Earth almost immediately.
The Falcon rocket sent these 143 satellites into an orbit around the north and south poles at an altitude of 500 kilometers. This is one of the shortcomings of the “multi-star” type “carpool” space mission: wherever the rocket goes, you can only go there.
For some passengers, this is not ideal. Some satellite projects hope to operate in higher or lower orbits, or in orbits of different latitude and longitude. Mounting satellites in Space Tugs can solve this problem. Once the tug is separated from the rocket, it can take several weeks to correct the orbit required for the “passenger.” The Falcon rocket launched Sunday was carrying two space tugs.
But for some projects, “scheduled flights” may be the only satisfactory option, so we have not yet seen a wave of launches that make small rockets and provide “special flights.”
Image source,Virgin orbit
British Virgin Orbit recently used a retired Boeing 747 from sister company Virgin Atlantic to successfully launch a launch vehicle into mid-air.
These small rockets may not be comparable in cost to large rockets like SpaceX Falcon 9, but they are expected to attract customers with special or urgent needs.
He explained: “These little satellites used to be fascinating and fun. It was about how to get to space the cheapest way.”
Hart told the BBC: “This is changing rapidly. They have become a heavy-duty business, and if they have to wait for other people, or go the wrong way, they will suffer. So you will see that Someone is willing to pay a little more and take them where they want to go when they have to go. “
With the rapid increase in the number of satellites entering low Earth orbit, space traffic management has become a hot topic.
Today, large-scale collisions are very rare, but today there are an unusually high number of satellites (up to 10%) subject to sudden and unexpected impulse changes. Among them, it is more likely to be damaged by some old space missions. Block hit.
The aerospace industry has to find a smarter way to track objects in low Earth orbit and issue braking and collision avoidance commands in time, otherwise certain altitudes will eventually become dangerous due to excessive concentration of debris and become unusable. .
