A SpaceX Falcon nine rocket launched 60 Starlink Internet relay satellites from the Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, and the team awaits launch Wednesday from the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force station.
With Sunday’s flight, SpaceX has introduced 835 Starlinks into an expanding global network that will eventually come with thousands of broadband advertising beacons that will provide high-speed Internet access anywhere on Earth. 120 new Starlinks every month.
SpaceX’s last Starlink mission, 14, began at 8:26 a. m. EDT when the Falcon 9’s nine first-stage engines ignite with a burst of flames, pushing the thin rocket away from Pad 39A into the Kennedy Space Center at a thrust of 1. 7 million. Pounds.
On his sixth flight, the first level propelled the rocket out of the dense decreasing atmosphere, then fell and headed for the landing of a drone on the high seas. The landing marked SpaceX’s 62nd reinforcement recovery fortune since December 2015, its 42nd at sea.
Less than a minute after the level separation, the two halves of the rocket’s nose cone fairing, whether veterans of two past missions, drove away for parachute descents to capture nets aboard pending recovery ships. Both were effectively recovered, one of them gave the impression. pierce his net, in all likelihood hitting the deck of his ship.
The moment level was completed in orbit and after two shots of its Merlin engine in a vacuum, the 60 Starlinks were released to fly alone one hour after takeoff.
Sunday’s launch marked the moment of SpaceX’s Falcon Nine flight since October 2, when a last-minute abortion blocked the launch of a Navigation Satellite from the Space Force Global Positioning System. This flight remains on hold as the company’s engineers assess an obvious challenge with engine turbopumps. .
SpaceX did not provide main points on how the engines were used on Sunday and those used on a Starlink flight on October 18 may simply be others used for the GPS mission.
Similarly, SpaceX or NASA said whether the engine challenge posed a risk to the planned release of four astronauts on the International Space Station over a Falcon Nine next month.
Sunday’s launch was Falcon nine’s 18th flight so far this year, the ninth since the rocket was introduced in 2010, the ninth with three triple-core Falcon Heavy launches. Falcon nine suffered two catastrophic failures, one in flight and one pre-launch test.