Tag: Richard Branson

While working to fix a problem that derailed an attempt to launch a four-man crew to the International Space Station, SpaceX pressed ahead with the launch of another Falcon 9 rocket Monday, this one carrying 21 next-generation Starlink internet satellites.

The last-minute scrub of a Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon capsule at the Kennedy Space Center was caused by trouble with the rocket’s first-stage engine ignition system. To allow time to fix the problem, and to avoid expected bad weather Tuesday, another attempt to send the Crew Dragon fliers on their way was delayed to Thursday.

But that didn’t affect work at the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station where a different SpaceX team counted down to launch of another Falcon 9 from pad 40. This time around, after a delay due to high levels of electrically charged solar wind particles, the countdown ticked smoothly to zero at 6:13 p.m. EST.

Streaking away to the southeast a few minutes before sunset, the first stage boosted the vehicle out of the dense lower atmosphere in spectacular fashion before falling away and heading for landing on an offshore droneship.

The second stage continued the climb to orbit and one hour after liftoff, the 21 Starlinks were released to fly on their own in a 230-mile-high orbit that will carry them 43 degrees to either side of the equator. In that orbit, the satellites will fly over all points as far north as Boston and as far south as New Zealand.

The Starlink system is designed to deliver relatively high-speed internet to customers anywhere on Earth using thousands of broadband relay stations in multiple low-altitude orbits. The satellites maintain connections with customers using laser links to hand off data streams from one to another as they pass overhead.

Including Monday’s launch, SpaceX has now launched 4,002 Starlinks, “and is providing high-speed internet to more than one million locations around the world, the majority of which are households,” the company said in an online overview.

“Starlink continues to grow rapidly, and SpaceX has raced to keep up with a surging demand for connectivity across the globe, especially in areas where few, if any, options for broadband connections have existed before now.”

To meet that demand, the company is now building two versions of a larger, more powerful Starlink satellite. One that is intended to fly on the company’s planned Super Heavy/Starship rocket and a slightly smaller variant that can be carried aloft by the less powerful Falcon 9.

The Version 2, or V2, satellites launched on Falcon 9 “are a bit smaller, so we affectionately refer to them as ‘V2 Mini’ satellites,” SpaceX said. “But don’t let the name fool you, a V2 Mini satellite has four times the capacity for serving users compared to its earlier counterparts.”

SpaceX is one of several companies building space-based internet delivery systems, raising concerns about the possibility of malfunctions and debris-creating collisions threatening other spacecraft.

But SpaceX says its satellites are designed to operate in relatively low-altitude orbits that allow atmospheric drag to quickly deorbit spacecraft at the end of their lives or in case of disabling malfunctions, minimizing the threat of collisions.

The satellites can automatically change course to avoid potential close encounters with other spacecraft or debris and the company publishes detailed tracking data to give governments and other satellite operators detailed situational awareness.

One major issue associated with Starlinks and other planned “mega constellations” of space-based internet relay stations is their reflectivity and potential impact on ground-based optical and radio telescopes.

SpaceX said it is actively working with the astronomical community to develop mitigations, including advanced coatings and operational procedures designed to minimize the reflectivity of the V2 satellites.

“While our V2 Mini satellites are larger than earlier versions, we’re still expecting them to be as dark or darker once the full range of mitigations are implemented and the satellites reach their operational orbit,” SpaceX said.

“However, we want to emphasize that even though brightness component measurements, ground modeling and analysis show effective brightness mitigations, we won’t know the full efficacy of our efforts until on-orbit observations are made of the satellites and data is collected and analyzed.”

William Harwood

Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”

SpaceX launched a high-power Spanish communications satellite Monday that will serve government and corporate users in the Americas, Greenland and along Atlantic Ocean air and maritime shipping corridors.

“One of the main target markets for this satellite is mobility, in particular in-flight connectivity and maritime (services),” Ignacio Sanchis, chief commercial officer of satellite owner Hispasat, told Spaceflight Now.

“We will also be providing connectivity services for governments and corporations in the fields of energy, oil and gas, etc., as well as telcos and mobile network operators in extending their cellular networks,” Sanchis added.

Using a first stage making its sixth flight, the 229-foot-tall Falcon 9 roared to life at 8:32 p.m. EST and quickly shot away from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, arcing over a full moon as it disappeared from view high above the Atlantic Ocean.

Thirty-six minutes later, after dropping off the first stage and carrying out two upper stage engine firings, the rocket released Hispasat’s Amazonas Nexus relay station into an elliptical orbit. Along the way, the first stage flew itself to touchdown on an off-shore landing barge.

The Amazonas Nexus satellite’s on-board electric thrusters will be used over the next few weeks to circularize the orbit at an altitude of 22,300 miles above the equator. In such geosynchronous orbits, spacecraft take 24 hours to complete one orbit and thus appear to hang stationary in the sky. That, in turn, allows the use of stationary antennas on the ground.

Built by Thales Alenia Space, the 4.5-ton Amazonas Nexus is a “high-throughput satellite,” or HTS, featuring a next-generation Digital Transparent Processor, a “technological breakthrough,” the company says, that will allow the satellite to be upgraded in orbit for different applications.

“Amazonas Nexus is the most advanced satellite of Hispasat’s fleet,” Sanchis said. “It’s a very powerful HTS satellite, which incorporates (a) leading edge digital processor. So it provides a great deal of flexibility for reconfiguration of the payload.”

Once checked out and stationed at 61 degrees west longitude, the satellite will serve all of the Americas, Greenland and air- and sea-corridors, focusing on mobile users and providing connectivity aboard ships, aircraft and in rural areas.

William Harwood

Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”

Virgin Orbit launched nine small satellites atop a rocket dropped from a 747 jumbo jet south of Ireland on Monday, but the booster suffered a failure during the climb to space and the payloads were lost, the company said.

The 747 “Cosmic Girl” jet took off from Cornwall Airport Newquay near Britain’s southwest coast in what had been billed as the first orbital launch from the United Kingdom and western Europe.

The repurposed Virgin Atlantic passenger jet, with the 70-foot-long 57,000-pound LauncherOne rocket tucked under its left wing, took off just after 5 p.m. EST, cheered on by airport workers, area residents and government officials as it slowly climbed away to the west and disappeared from view over the Atlantic Ocean.

After reaching an altitude of around 35,000 feet off the southern coast of Ireland, the aircraft carried out a racetrack-like loop around the drop point while engineers made final checks and verified the rocket’s readiness for launch.

Then, approaching the drop point a second time, LauncherOne was released. As the 747 banked sharply away to provide plenty of clearance, the rocket’s first stage engine ignited with 80,000 pounds of thrust to begin the southwesterly climb to space.

Three minutes later, the first stage fell away and the ascent continued on the power of the second stage engine, providing 5,000 pounds of push. Virgin confirmed stage separation and ignition of the second stage engine, but it was not clear if the burn was completed as planned or whether a problem developed after engine shutdown.

After a few long moments of silence, Virgin’s webcast commentator said “it appears LauncherOne has suffered an anomaly, which will prevent us from making orbit on this mission.” The company then tweeted the same, adding “we are evaluating the information.”

The company initially tweeted the rocket had reached orbit, but then posted an update, saying “as we find out more, we’re removing our previous tweet about reaching orbit. We’ll share more info when we can.”

On board for Monday’s launching were nine small satellites representing a mix of government and private-sector projects in Britain, the United States, Oman, Poland and the European Space Agency.

The Aman satellite, Oman’s first, was a small Earth-observation platform built in collaboration with SatRevolution, a Polish “new space” satellite developer. Britain’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory sponsored two CubeSats to study the ionosphere.

Britain and the European Space Agency collaborated on a satellite known as DOVER, designed to test advanced global navigation technology, while Space Forge of Wales developed an experimental platform to test Earth-return technology.

The manifest was rounded out by IOD-3 Amber, the first of more than 20 British-built satellites designed to provide space-based “marine domain awareness,” and STORK-6, the fourth in a series of SatRevolution multi-spectral Earth-observation CubeSats.

Virgin’s LauncherOne, built in the United States, had completed five flights before Monday’s launch. The initial flight carrying a dummy payload was a failure, but the following four missions, carrying a variety of “smallsats” were successful.

All of those flights originated at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Virgin founder Richard Branson looked to Monday’s flight to demonstrate a unique ability to launch small satellites from anywhere in the world.

“Europe has never put a satellite into space and the one cool thing about using a Virgin Atlantic 747 is that we can fly to any country and we can put satellites into space, and we can do it at a moment’s notice,” he said before launch.

But not quite yet.

William Harwood

Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. space program full-time since 1984, first as Cape Canaveral bureau chief for United Press International and now as a consultant for CBS News. He covered 129 space shuttle missions, every interplanetary flight since Voyager 2’s flyby of Neptune and scores of commercial and military launches. Based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Harwood is a devoted amateur astronomer and co-author of “Comm Check: The Final Flight of Shuttle Columbia.”