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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 60 Star broadband internet satellites into orbit and landed back on Earth, making SpaceX the operator of a record-breaking 180 satellites in orbit today.

SpaceX Launches 60 Star Satellites, Nails Rocket Landing in Record-Breaking Flight : Read more

There are other views of launching so many satellites too. Astronomers say SpaceX’s satellites are too bright in the sky. Friday’s launch will try to fix that.

BLASTOFF! SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched 60 more mini internet satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Monday night. https://abcn.ws/36r7JOC

If all goes to plan, this mission will be just the first of as many as 20 Starlink launches this year as SpaceX builds up a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit to provide global Internet service. SpaceX may begin to offer “bumpy” service by the middle of this year to some consumers.

Following this next launch, scheduled for 9:19pm ET Monday (02:19 UTC Tuesday), SpaceX will have a constellation of nearly 180 satellites in low-Earth orbit, each weighing a little more than 220kg. This will make the company simultaneously the world’s largest private satellite operator (eclipsing Planet Labs), while also being the most active private launch company.

Continue reading “With Monday night launch, SpaceX to become world’s largest satellite operator” »

Image Source: SpaceX

SpaceX’s first mission of 2020 will deploy Starlink satellites on Monday, January 6 –It will mark the first official launch supported by the new United States Space Force. A Falcon 9 rocket will lift off at 9:20 p.m. EST from Pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. SpaceX conducted a static-fire test yesterday to prepare the rocket for the Starlink-2 mission.

Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched a Starlink mission, the Iridium-8 mission, and the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission pic.twitter.com/QdailzdG4o— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 4, 2020

Continue reading “The U.S Space Force will support a SpaceX mission for the first time” »

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX on Saturday fired up the rocket that will ferry the company’s next batch of Starlink satellites into space.

The company conducted a static-fire test on Saturday (Jan. 4) of a Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the company said on Twitter. That rocket is expected to send 60 Starlink internet satellites into space no earlier than Monday (Jan. 6), marking the first launch of the year from Florida’s Space Coast.

The best way to distribute quantum entanglement around the globe is via a massive constellation of orbiting satellites, physicists say.

Forecasters predict near-ideal weather conditions Monday night for the first launch at Cape Canaveral this year, when SpaceX plans to send another 60 Starlink broadband satellites into orbit atop a Falcon 9 rocket.

FULL STORY: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/01/02/good-weather-predicted…h-of-2020/

The final Rockot booster converted from an intercontinental ballistic missile launched into space Friday (Dec. 27) carrying a trio Russian satellites and a military payload into orbit.

The Rockot, a launch vehicle based on Russia’s RS-18 ballistic missile, launched three Gonets-M communications satellites into space from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. The rocket also reportedly carried a military payload called Blits-M, a glass sphere designed to serve as a laser reflector, according to Russianspaceweb.com, which tracks the Russian space industry.

WASHINGTON — Iridium Communications completed disposal of the last of its 65 working legacy satellites Dec. 28, while leaving open the possibility of paying an active-debris-removal company to deorbit 30 that failed in the decades since the operator deployed its first-generation constellation.

McLean, Virginia-based Iridium started deorbiting its first constellation, built by Motorola and Lockheed Martin, in 2017, as it replaced them with second-generation satellites from Thales Alenia Space.

Of the 95 satellites launched between 1997 and 2002, 30 malfunctioned and remain stuck in low Earth orbit, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Continue reading “Iridium would pay to deorbit its 30 defunct satellites — for the right price” »