For the third time, the SpaceX Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) unmanned spacecraft has headed out to sea to support a booster landing attempt after the company’s tenth Starlink launch.
Known as Starlink-9, the mission will be the ninth SpaceX launch of the updated Starlink v1.0 satellites and the tenth satellite launch dedicated to the Internet in general. For known and unknown reasons, Starlink-9 has been the most delayed SpaceX launch in recent memory, going from June 23 to 25 and 26 and then July 8, 11, 29, and 31. Almost six weeks of delays recently culminated (so far) with a 24-hour slip from July 31. Starlink-9 is now scheduled to launch no earlier than (NET) 3:21 am EDT (07:21 UTC) on Saturday, August 1.
As unlikely as it may seem in the context of more than a month of delays, if that timeline is met, Starlink-9 will launch less than 48 hours after a Atlas V rocket from the United Launch Alliance (ULA) ships the new rover to NASA Mars. way to mars. Before the last two slips, Starlink-9 and NASA’s Mars 2020 rover could have launched just 24 hours apart, more or less, but that ambitious schedule didn’t work for unknown reasons.
Like the first attempt last month, Falcon 9’s B1051 booster is still assigned to Starlink-9 and will become the third SpaceX rocket to launch five times when it finally takes off. Starlink-9 will be the second launch of SpaceX’s Smallsat Program, bringing two BlackSky Earth spacecraft into orbit on 57 Starlink v1.0 satellites.
Starlink’s first shared ride was seamlessly completed on June 13 when Falcon 9’s B1059 booster and a new upper stage helped put three Planet Skysats into orbit before deploying a stack of 58 Starlink satellites. With a likely value of around $ 1 million per Skysat or manifested BlackSky satellite, Starlink ridesharing is a remote possibility of actually funding each launch, but still represents significant savings when tens to hundreds of Starlink launches are projected to SpaceX has planned.
According to SpaceX executives, 14 Starlink launches (~ 840 satellites) are needed before the company can begin to seriously implement Internet service for customers in the northern United States and southern Canada. Various testing programs are already underway in the form of private betas with SpaceX employees and families, while the first public beta testing could begin as soon as next month.
As of now, SpaceX has completed nine Starlink launches since May 2019. As of November 2019, eight of those nine launches have flown operational satellites v1.0, meaning that SpaceX is likely six or more launches from the initial operability of the constellation. As of June 2020, it looked like SpaceX could hit that milestone in late August, but Starlink-9’s unprecedented delays mean the September / October time frame is now a much more realistic target.
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