CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – SpaceX has today successfully launched a new Starlink rideshare mission (18 Aug.), featuring an air of Starlink Internet satellites along with three small Earth observation satellites, before landing a rocket at sea.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket with 58 SpaceX Starlink satellites, and a trio of small SkySat satellites for the California-based imaging company, Planet, lifted at 10:31 a.m. EDT (1431 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The launch is the second Starlink mission this month and SpaceX’s 14th mission to date in 2020. The company, and benefiting from its fleet of reusable, flight-tested boosters, also set another record with the launch – with the same booster flying for the sixth time. Today’s mission also marks the 40th reflection of a Falcon 9.
The booster featured in the current flight, designated B1049 by SpaceX, previously launched three separate Starlink flights, as well as the Telstar 18 VANTAGE en Iridium-8 missions. And now, after another landing in the morning, it became the first six-time floor. About eight minutes after a time lapse, the booster landed softly on the deck of SpaceX’s drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Atlantic Ocean.
Related: Starlink satellite constellation launches in photos
The road to 100
The current flight inches SpaceX to another major milestone above the recycling aspect, as it marks the company’s 99th launch. It is important to note that this praise applies to the Falcon family of missiles, including all versions of the Falcon.
SpaceX’s first rocket, the Falcon 1, had a total of five missions, two of which were successful and paved the way for SpaceX’s many achievements. Since its debut in 2010, the company’s Falcon 9 workhorse has now flown a total of 90 times – with only two accidents. (The CRS-7 delivery mission for NASA was lost at launch, and the AMOS-6 loadload was lost on the road during a routine preflight test.)
The heavy lift of the company, known as Falcon heavy, has flown three times so far, all of which have been a success.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 with one overarching goal: to make life multiplanetary. Company founder and CEO Elon Musk has said that the philosophy of SpaceX has always been that a fully (and rapidly) reusable rocket is the key to dramatically reducing the cost of spaceflight.
To that end, Musk and SpaceX strive for reusability. Historically, rockets have been a one-and-a-half piece of hardware. After a launch, the various parts of a rocket would be thrown away and never used again. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has since proven that the same first stage booster can launch and land multiple times.
In fact, the latest iteration of the Falcon 9 is capable of flying 10 times with not much refueling in between, and as many as 100 times before retiring, Musk said. So far, SpaceX has flown one rocket six times and two others five times.
Related: See the evolution of SpaceX rockets in photos
Rocket use
The first stage of the Falcon 9 included in today’s mission is now a record for six times floor, after three separate Starlink flights were previously launched, such as the Telstar 18 VANTAGE en Iridium-8 missions.
Earlier this year, it became the second Falcon 9 booster to launch five times and the first to land five times successfully. The first booster to launch five times, designated B1048 by SpaceX, belibbe in inflight anomaly in March. There was some cleaning done in an engine part, which resulted in the booster missing its intended landing on the drone ship. (However, the booster delivered the load to the job without any problems.)
As a result, SpaceX subsequently changed its refurbishment techniques and has now launched and redesigned three different boosters five times, one of which stars in today’s mission.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 arrived successfully on the SpaceX drone ship “Of course I still love you“About eight minutes after liftoff, marks the company’s 58th recovery since its first launch in 2015.
To land, the booster must perform a series of orbital ballet movements, after separating from its upper stage, to reposition itself for landing. Then it relies on one of its nine engines to carry out a series of three short fires to support itself enough to gently touch the deck of a floating platform.
That floating platform is one of two massive drone ships, SpaceX deploys out into the Atlantic Ocean, to capture its returning boosters. So far, the company has made 58 catches out of 68 attempts. Once the boosters are back in Florida’s Port Canaveral, they will be returned to the facilities of SpaceX, where each will be carefully inspected and reimbursed to fly again.
That’s thanks to a series of upgrades – improved engines, a more durable intermediate station (connecting the first and second stages), titanium grid fins and a more robust thermal protection system – the Falcon 9 received in 2018, allowing it to better withstand the voltage of launch.
Rapid reuse, coupled with the fact that the company now has two drone ships to repair its first-stage boosters, means the company can launch more often. SpaceX launched a total of four times between the end of May and the end of June, and it plans to launch a number of launches by the end of 2020.
Related: SpaceX launches 60 Starlink satellites, landing rocket in a dazzling night lift
The screen
SpaceX’s Starlink satellites have been a tornado for astronomers since its first launch in 2019. The flat-panel satellites did not keep the astronomy community on guard, appeared as a bright train of dots marching across the night sky. Since then, SpaceX has tried to reduce the brightness so that its impact on observations of the night sky is minimal.
To that end, the company began fitting its fleet of Internet-radiating satellites with a special visor. The sunshine, as SpaceX calls it, is a deployable visor designed to prevent sunlight from reflecting on the smallest parts of the satellites, such as the antennas. The company hopes to reduce the overall brightness of the fleet and enable it to appear in the night sky as dark as possible.
A previous Starlink launch in June of this year included one satellite with the experimental visor; Today’s mission is the second in which all satellites sport it.
Fairing Recovery
SpaceX has proven that it can reuse the most expensive part of the rocket: the first stage. This piece of hardware accounts for 60% of the Falcon 9’s total price tag. But the business has not stopped there. In an effort to further reduce launch costs, SpaceX has begun recover and re-use their taxes.
The clamshell-like hardware (also called the nose of the rocket) returns to Earth in two pieces, each equipped with parachutes and software that leads it back to Earth, where the company’s two boats – GO Mrs. Tree and GO Mrs. Chief – wait with outstretched nets.
Just waiting in the ocean with an outstretched net is not always the key to snagging a falling fairing. Whether they can catch a catch depends on many factors, including the weather. If the two boats are unable to catch the domes, they can pull them out of the water and bring them to port. From there, the pieces are prepped for re-use.
The Falcon 9 on this flight carried a reused half of the loadload, which previously flew on the company’s fourth Starlink mission in January. SpaceX has marked the walks with various symbols to indicate if they were caught in the air or kicked from the ocean, such as being taken prisoner by a local launch photographer.
SpaceX is expected to make an effort to snag the falling fairings, which will occur about 40 minutes after liftoff.
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