An upgraded SpaceX drone ship travels about 630 kilometers (~ 390 miles) in the Atlantic Ocean to support the Falcon 9’s upcoming Starlink launch and landing.
This year alone will be SpaceX’s 11th Starlink launch, the mission’s 12th operational (V1.0) launch and the 13th Starlink launch overall, representing some 700 operational satellites in orbit simultaneously. According to a May 2020 interview with SpaceX COO and President Gwyn Shotwell, those public beta tests could only begin after the completion of 14 Starlink launches, while recent FCC filings show that SpaceX only considered v1.0 satellites as part of the operational constellation. Is going. In other words, if successful, the Starlink-12 SpaceX will drop just two launches from a star large enough to start public internet service beta testing – or almost as big as that.
Meanwhile, the Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX’s booster assigned to the mission will be on the verge of breaking the re-use turnaround record – a 51-day feature between launches by the same booster currently assigned to Starlink-12.
Known as the Falcon Booster 9B1058, the SpaceX rocket became the first U.S. vehicle to launch astronauts since 2011, sending NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard the Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). After a successful launch on May 30, the spacecraft docked with the ISS about two days later and spent more than two months in orbit before returning to Earth in early August.
Meanwhile, Booster B1058 remained busy while the spacecraft was being put into orbit by its progress. On July 20, just 51 days after the crew backed Dragon’s inaugural astronaut launch, the rocket smashed SpaceX’s turnaround record when it launched South Korea’s Anasis II communications satellite. When SpaceX’s previous record of 62 days was broken in a 51-day turnaround, it set the record for the most reusable orbit-class rocket ever by unsetting NASA’s space shuttle.
So far, the Falcon 9B1058 is scheduled to launch Starlink-12 on Thursday, September 17, at 2:17 p.m. ETT (UTC-4). Aside from the delay, it will represent a 59-day turnaround from Booster’s record-breaking second launch. If the Starlink-12 launches by September 19th, the B1058 will boast both SpaceX’s first and second place turnaround record and techn will be able to technically fly three times in 110 days.
After Starlink-12, SpaceX aims to launch Starlink-13 by the end of September and its third U.S. The military is scheduled to launch GPS III – which includes the new Falcon 9 Booster B1062 – not before September 30 (net). While unlikely, if everything stays on schedule, September 2020 could be the first four-launch month in SpaceX’s history.
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