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Saturday update at 10:15 a.m. ET: the third time is not a charmer. Just over an hour before the launch of a Falcon nine rocket saturday morning from Florida, SpaceX announced that: “Resisting today’s launch of today’s tenth Starlink project to allow more time for departures; the team is running to identify the next launch opportunity. It will announce a new target date once it is displayed with the range “.
In particular, this is the moment when this rocket, whose first level has flown 4 times before, is cleaned on launch day due to the need for more “checks”.”
Saturday update at 8:30 a.m. ET: SpaceX first attempted to launch its tenth batch of Starlink satellites on June 26 before retiring a few hours before takeoff, raising the need for “additional pre-flight checks.”
Then, at the time of last Wednesday, the corporate canceled its premiere for bad weather.
Will the rocket company be better off today? Weather situations are not ideal, with a 40% probability of “prohibited” situations due to clusters and electric shocks in the atmosphere. What we do know is that the company’s 57 Starlink satellites, all equipped with state-of-the-art “viewers” to reduce their brightness, and two BlackSky Earth satellites are in a position to operate.
Takeoff is scheduled for 10:54 a.m. ET (2:54 p.m. UTC) today from the launch-39A complex at the Kennedy Space Center. The webcast shown below begins about 15 minutes before launch.
11:50 AM ET Wednesday update: Due to adverse weather situations at the launch site, SpaceX canceled Wednesday’s launch attempt. The company has still shown a new launch attempt for the mission.
– Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) July 8, 2020
Original message: Storms hit kennedy Space Center on Tuesday afternoon, as they do over the summer, but SpaceX continued to move toward launching its tenth batch of Starlink satellites.
The company will look to launch 57 Starlink satellites, as well as two ground satellites for BlackSky Global, on a Falcon nine rocket at 11:5nine am ET on Wednesday (3:5nine pm UTC) from the launch-3nineA complex at the Kennedy Space Center. . The time is correct, with a 60% chance of favorable situations for take-off.
SpaceX first attempted to launch the project on June 26, but stopped a few hours before the planned launch, resulting in the need for additional time to complete pre-launch checks.
The launch of these satellites will take SpaceX’s Starlink constellation to about six hundred spacecraft in a general low Earth orbit. And they are not small CubeSats: each of the Starlink satellites weighs 260 kg and has its own propulsion system on board.
As SpaceX plans to launch thousands more satellites while building a constellation of beacons in low-Earth orbit to provide global Internet service from space, astronomers have naturally begun to raise concerns. They are involved over the night sky for garden astronomers, as well as the complicated observatories in Chile, Mauna Kea and other places.
SpaceX has sought to solve the problem, first by obscuring the satellites to make them less reflective. Today, the company is stepping forward by creating a transparent radio foam that will detach from satellites and avoid reflections. Expand / Representation of Visorsat technology. Spacex
“This visor rests flat on the chassis at launch and unfolds during the falcon nine satellite separation,” the company said. “The visor prevents the soft visor from reflecting on diffuse antennas by preventing the soft one from reaching the antennas completely. This technique not only prevents thermal effects on the surface from darkening antennas, but also deserves to have a greater effect on antennas. about the relief of brilliance.”
The 57 Starlink satellites aboard the Falcon nine rocket will bring those “viewers” for the first time.
This will be the third time SpaceX has introduced five times a top-notch falcon nine: the driver began its career with the Demo-1 project in March 201nine and has since completed 3 more projects. The company will look for this booster in the Of Course I Still Love You droneship.
Image of the ad through Trevor Mahlmann
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