Aloha, welcome back from space 💫 pic.twitter.com/xWPN09WtawAugust 18, 2020
SpaceX just plucks another payload fairing from the air, and you can watch video of the dramatic cosmic capture.
The unforeseen SpaceX boat GO Ms. Enter Sunday half of a falling payload fairing Tuesday (August 18), shortly after a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket 58 Starlink launches Internet satellites and three Earth observation spacecraft in orbit.
Payload fairings are the keepers who protect satellites during launch. SpaceX fairings come in two pieces, both of which return to Earth on fallen parachutes, thanks to small thrusters. Such tech helps restore and reuse the fairs, which each cost $ 6 million, said SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.
Related: Starlink satellite constellation launches in photos
GO Ms. Tree and his sisterhood, GO Ms. Chief, are also part of this image. Seawater is extremely corrosive, so sniffing fairing halves from the air makes repairs easier, Musk said. The ships have so far towed a handful of fairings, including one double catch during the launch of a South Korean military satellite last month. (However, ocean splashdowns do not preclude use; SpaceX has shown fairs that it fished out of the water.)
GO Ms. Chief today pulled one fairing half from the Atlantic Ocean. But GO Ms. Tree caught the other, a success captured by a camera-equipped drone. Musk posted that footage on Twitter Tuesday, recorded the 43-second video with some playfully incongruous lounge music.
Today’s launch included reusability action on multiple fronts. It was the sixth launch for this particular Falcon 9 first stage, for example a milestone that SpaceX had never reached before. And more liftoffs are likely to come for the booster, which aced its landing on a ship aze on Tuesday.
Starlink is SpaceX’s growing constellation of Internet satellites. The company has so far launched nearly 600 Starlink trades, and many more will go up in the near future: SpaceX has permission to launch 12,000 such satellites and has applied for approval to launch a maximum of 30,000.
The other three satellites launched today are SkySats. They belong to San Francisco-based company Planet, which operates the world’s largest constellation of Earth-observing spaceships.
Mike Wall is the author of “Out There” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.
