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Meteorologists predict a 60 percent chance of favorable weather for a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to bring more Starlink broadband satellites into orbit.
The launch, scheduled for Thursday at 2:19 pm EDT (1819 GMT), will add 60 more Starlink satellites to SpaceX’s ever-growing broadband network. SpaceX has launched more than 700 Starlink satellites to date, making the company the owner of the largest fleet of spacecraft in orbit.
Like previous Starlink launches, a 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket headed northeast of Florida’s Space Coast with 1.7 million pounds of thrust from Merlin’s nine main engines, then delivered its first stage booster around two and a half minute of flight.
A single Merlin engine in the Falcon 9’s second stage is expected to fire twice before releasing the stack of Starlink satellites into a nearly circular orbit between 172 miles (278 kilometers) and 162 miles (261 kilometers), with a 53-degree tilt, based on pre-launch estimates.
The separation of the 60 Starlink satellites from the rocket is scheduled approximately 61 minutes after launch.
SpaceX plans to recover the first stage of Falcon 9 aboard the “Just Read the Instructions” drone spacecraft located northeast of Cape Canaveral in the Atlantic Ocean, approximately east of Charleston, South Carolina. The propellant landing of the first stage is expected around eight minutes after take-off.
The first leg of Thursday’s launch took place on two previous occasions, including the May 30 launch of two NASA astronauts in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and the July 20 launch of Korea’s Anasis 2 military communications satellite. from the south. Half of the shell-shaped payload deck on Thursday’s mission is also a veteran of two previous Falcon 9 / Starlink launches, according to SpaceX.
SpaceX also plans to retrieve the payload fairing after Thursday’s launch. The two halves of the shroud are designed to descend under a parachute.
Thursday’s mission will mark the thirteenth launch of the Starlink satellites since SpaceX began rolling out the network in May 2019. SpaceX’s most recent launch on September 3 carried the previous 60 Starlink satellites.
The official weather forecast for the launch issued Wednesday by the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral predicts a 60 percent chance of good conditions for the Falcon 9 to take off on Thursday. The top weather concerns Thursday will be cumulus and anvil associated with afternoon storms.
If the launch is delayed until Friday, there is a 40 percent chance of acceptable weather conditions in the forecast.
SpaceX eventually plans to launch thousands of Starlink satellites, but the first tranche of Starlinks will feature 1,440 spacecraft, according to Jonathan Hofeller, Starlink vice president and SpaceX commercial sales.
“The total global constellation we are targeting is 1,440 satellites, of which a good number of them are already in orbit,” Hofeller said.
Some of the satellites, including those from Starlink’s first launch last May, are moving to lower and exorbitant altitudes.
Each flat-panel Starlink satellite weighs about a quarter ton and is built at a SpaceX facility in Redmond, Washington, near Seattle. Expanding on SpaceX’s penchant for building hardware in-house, the aerospace company is manufacturing its own Starlink satellites, user terminals and ground stations.
SpaceX’s mega-constellation Starlink is already the world’s largest fleet of satellites, but hundreds more will be launched in the coming months.
Hofeller said last month that SpaceX is building six Starlink spacecraft a day and plans to launch Starlink missions at intervals of every two to three weeks until completing the initial Starlink network of about 1,440 satellites.
SpaceX has regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to eventually operate about 12,000 Starlink satellites to cover the planet with high-speed, low-latency Internet signals. SpaceX also outlined plans to launch up to 30,000 additional Starlink satellites, beyond the 12,000 already approved, in filings with the International Telecommunications Union.
The Starlink network is one of two major development projects SpaceX is undertaking, alongside the company’s next-generation Starship super-heavy-lift rocket.
In a discussion at the ASCEND Space Science and Technology Summit last month, Hofeller said that private beta testing is being rolled out in the Pacific Northwest. With approximately 700 satellites, the Starlink network has enough coverage to provide connectivity to users at high latitudes, but more launches are required to expand coverage to other regions.
SpaceX has asked those interested in participating in the public beta testing phase to register on the Starlink website.
With the beta testing program now underway, SpaceX is collecting latency statistics and running speed tests. The company says it is satisfied with the initial results.
SpaceX said earlier this month that tests so far show the network has “super low latency” with download speeds in excess of 100 megabits per second. That’s fast enough to stream multiple HD movies at once and still have bandwidth to spare, according to SpaceX.
SpaceX has also begun testing spacecraft with laser links between satellites, which could eventually allow data traffic to flow through the network bypassing ground relay stations. The first batch of Starlink satellites did not carry inter-satellite links.
Hofeller hinted at updating the Starlink satellites in his virtual presentation at the ASCEND Space Science and Technology Summit last month.
“With 1,440 satellites, that’s when we have global coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the plan is not to stop there,” Hofeller said. “We will continue to launch, and with each launch, we can provide more and more capacity. There is never enough capacity. You cannot limit what your children want to see and what your family wants to consume. So we will continue to densify the network. “
SpaceX will deorbit older Starlink satellites as upgraded spacecraft come online, according to Hofeller.
After launch on Thursday, SpaceX’s next mission is scheduled to lift off from platform 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on September 30, when a Falcon 9 rocket will deploy the next Space Force GPS navigation satellite. from USA
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