Continuing its fast-paced launch, SpaceX on Sunday fired a Falcon 9 rocket with a powerful Next-Pay generation SiriusXM radio satellite, accelerating the California rocket builder’s 25th orbit flight so far this year.
The first phase of the Falcon 9, making a record-breaking seventh flight, was struck by lightning at 12:30 p.m.
William Hardwood / CBS News
The lift came two days after a last-minute scrub on Friday due to an unforeseen problem, but the chuckle in space on Sunday was unbearable and the 15,000-pound SXM-7 satellite, built by Maxer Technologies, was released for its 32-minute flight. After the liftoff.
The first phase of the Falcon 9, meanwhile, landed on the -f-shore droneship, after the gait stimulated the craft from the lower atmosphere. It was the company’s 69th successful phase recovery, the 48th landing on one of its droneships and the seventh landing for Booster B1051, tying the mark set by another booster last month.
Initially published in the elliptical “Transfer Orbit”, the SXM-7 spacecraft will use on-board thrusters to orbit its itude elevation at 22,300 miles from the equator where satellites move in sync with Earth’s rotation and appear stationary in the sky. Which allows users on the ground to select signals without tracking the moving target.
The SiriusXM-7 satellite has large deployed antennas for transmitting radio programming directly to homes, businesses, cars, trucks and other vehicles. It will join the other five satellites in the SiriusXM fleet, eventually replacing the older, less powerful models.
SpaceX
Eight days have been particularly busy for SpaceX since the start of Sunday.
Last Sunday, the company Start The Dragon cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station and inspected its automatic docking at the Labo complex on Monday, before testing the engines of the first phase of the SiriusXM rocket later that evening.
Engineers from the Texas-based company Boca Chika, SpaceX, then conducted a dramatic test flight of the prototype Starship rocket on Wednesday. When the prototype was Destroy in a spectacular frenzy While attempting to land, the test was seen as a major milestone in the development of SpaceX’s next pay-generation super-heavy-lift rocket.
Launching on Sunday was SpaceX’s 25th Falcon 9 flight this year and the 102nd since the workhorse rocket was launched in 2010. The company’s final launch of the year, from Pad 39 at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, is expected to be placed in the classified National Reconnaissance Office Fees Satellite. Orbit
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