12.12.2019
SpaceX to experiment with less-reflective satellite coatings on next Starlink launch for Jan.3
SpaceX’s next launch of satellites for the company’s Starlink broadband network — planned in the final days of 2019 — will carry one spacecraft with an experimental coating designed to make it less reflective in orbit, a first step in assuaging concerns from scientists who say the deployment of thousands more Starlink stations would impede some astronomical observations.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, told reporters Friday that the company wants to do “the right thing” and ensure the night sky remains accessible for scientific observations and inspiration.
SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket launch dedicated to the Starlink network is scheduled in late December, roughly two weeks after the company launches the next Falcon 9 mission on its manifest. That mission, slated to carry a commercial geostationary telecom satellite, is planned for no earlier than Monday, Dec. 16.
The Starlink launch in late December will carry 60 new satellites to join 120 other Starlink data relay nodes launched on two previous missions in May and November.
The Starlink satellites launched earlier this year traced paths across morning and evening twilight skies. The spacecraft were deployed from their Falcon 9 launchers in tight bunches, and were more reflective than expected, appearing to fly overhead in train-like formations before spreading out in the days and weeks after each launch.
Before spreading out and raising their orbits using ion thrusters, the Starlink satellites sometimes flared to become as luminous as the brightest stars in the sky. The flat-panel satellites are relatively small, with a deployable solar panel, and weigh around 573 pounds (260 kilograms) at launch, according to SpaceX.
Responding to astronomers’ protests, SpaceX said earlier this year it would take steps to make the bottom of each Starlink satellite less reflective. The 60 satellites launched in November did not have such a change, but one of the 60 spacecraft scheduled for launch in late December will have a modification to address the brightness concerns.
“This next batch has one satellite that we’ve put a coating on the bottom,” Shotwell said Friday in a meeting with reporters at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. “This is going to be an experiment … We’re going to do trial and error to figure out what’s the best way to get this done. But we are going to get it done.”
Shotwell said the Starlink satellites for the late December launch have been delivered to Cape Canaveral from the Starlink factory in Redmond, Washington, for final launch preparations.
“Astronomy is one of a few things that gets little kids excited about space,” Shotwell said. “There are a lot of adults that get excited, too, who either depend on it for their living or for entertainment. But we want to make sure we do the right thing, to make sure little kids can look through their telescopes. It’d be cool for them to see a Starlink. I think that’s cool. But they should be looking at Saturn and the moon.”
Before committing to further satellite changes, Shotwell said SpaceX wants to make sure the coating works. SpaceX also wants to ensure the coating change does not adversely affect the performance of the satellite, such as its thermal properties.
“That’s why we can’t just say we’re just going to do this thing,” she said. “It also has to work.”
Shotwell said SpaceX was surprised that the Starlink satellites were so reflective after the first launch in May.
“There are lots of people that have looked at Starlink and looked at the satellites, lots of people knew what we were doing, and no one thought of this,” she said. “We didn’t think of it. The astronomy community didn’t think of it. It happened … Let’s go figure that out.”
SpaceX has approval from the Federal Communications Commission to launch and operate up to 12,000 Starlink satellites in the coming years. The company’s initial Starlink fleet will number 1,584 satellites to enable global Internet services, and SpaceX’s broadband network could approach that number of spacecraft with a series of up to two dozen Falcon 9/Starlink launches in 2020.
The American Astronomical Society has established a working group to connect the astronomical scientific community and SpaceX, the AAS said in a written update posted Dec. 5 on its website.
“The response from our community was loud enough that SpaceX reached out to the AAS looking to establish a line of communication,” wrote Kelsie Krafton, a publicly policy fellow at the American Astronomical Society. “Since optical/infrared interference doesn’t have a statutory or regulatory framework like radio interference, they hadn’t had any interactions with that part of our community.”
Krafton wrote that SpaceX and the AAS have discussed the Starlink brightness issue on eight telecons since June. The astronomy advocacy group says it has met with satellite industry representatives, congressional staff, federal officials and members of the space law community.
“Things are moving in a hopeful direction after our last two telecons,” Krafton wrote. “SpaceX is willing to test coatings to see if that helps bring down the brightness.”
Krafton wrote that astronomers are aiming to select a brightness level for SpaceX to target for their Starlink satellites. Simulations are also underway to model the Starlink satellites’ impacts to ground-based astronomical observatories, and astronomers have discussed the best way for SpaceX to disseminate their launch schedules to allow scientists to take measures to avoid observations that might be impacted by Starlink satellites, according to Krafton’s post on the AAS website.
Astronomers want to make sure observations planned by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, or LSST, remain unimpeded by satellite constellations planned by SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon and other companies.
Funded by the U.S. government, the LSST is under construction in Chile and is designed to capture deep, wide-field images of the entire available sky, allowing astronomers to learn more about dark energy and dark matter, and detect potentially hazardous asteroids with orbits near Earth, among other objectives.
Members of the LSST science team said last month that, assuming the full deployment of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, nearly every exposure from the observatory within two hours of sunset or sunrise would have a satellite streak. During summer months, when twilight times longer, there could be a 40 percent impact on twilight observing time, according to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, or AURA, which manages the LSST project for the National Science Foundation.
“Because of scattered light in the optics by the bright satellites, the scientific usefulness of an entire exposure can sometimes be negated,” AURA said in a statement last month. “Detection of near-Earth asteroids, normally surveyed for during twilight, would be particularly impacted. Dark energy surveys are also sensitive to the satellites because of streaks caused in the images. Avoiding saturation of streaks is vital.”
“The goal of Starlink is to provide worldwide internet service, an aspiration we do not want to impede, but this requires one to two orders of magnitude more low Earth orbiting satellites than currently exist,” Krafton wrote. “We do not want to give up access to optical observations from the ground. Our group’s task is to find a path forward that accommodates both uses of the sky.”
Quelle: SN
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Update: 18.12.2019
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SpaceX launches lucky no. 13 for this year [Updated]
Fairing reuse, Starlink trains, and Starship testing marked big moments in 2019.
Starlink
SpaceX also got the jump on its broadband constellation competitors in 2019, with the launch of 120 Starlink Internet satellites over the course of two missions. These flights represented the vanguard of a fleet of more than 10,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit that will provide low-latency connectivity around much of the world and may set the company up to compete with traditional Internet service providers as early as 2020.
The company also stoked controversy among astronomers with its train of satellites, which were clearly visible immediately after launch, and as they raised their orbits. However, SpaceX has recognized those concerns, and company officials have said they will experiment with making the underside of the satellites darker so they are less disruptive to nighttime skies.
SpaceX has received the brunt of these criticisms as it is the first of several ventures each planning to launch hundreds to thousands of satellites into low-Earth orbit for broadband Internet service. It remains to be seen whether SpaceX can master the considerable technical challenges of providing seamless Internet from orbit, but the company now has two considerable advantages over its competitors—plenty of operational experience in space from 120 satellites, and a peerless, low-cost, reusable rocket.
It is possible that SpaceX will launch a third batch of 60 Starlink satellites at the very end of this month.
Quelle: ArsTechnica
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Update: 21.12.2019
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SpaceX poised to accelerate launch cadence with series of Starlink missions
SpaceX teams across the United States are readying for what the company’s chief operating officer predicts will be a record number of launches in 2020.
Before the end of January, SpaceX aims to perform four Falcon 9 launches from Florida’s Space Coast — three for the company’s Starlink broadband network, and a crucial in-flight abort test for the Crew Dragon spacecraft no earlier than Jan. 11.
SpaceX has performed its final launch of 2019, finishing the year with 13 missions — 11 using the “single-stick” Falcon 9 and two employing the Falcon Heavy with three booster core connected together. All 13 of the missions were successful.
The company accomplished 21 launches in 2018, and 18 in 2017.
That adds up to 52 successful missions in a row — one of the longest-running success streaks in the global launch industry — since a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral during final preparations for a pre-flight test-firing in September 2016, damaging the launch complex and destroying an Israeli communications satellite.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, said the company is poised to launch a lot more rockets next year.
“I think in 2020 we’ll do more, and that’s because of Starlink,” she said in a roundtable discussion with reporters earlier this month. “I think we will have 14 or 15 non-Starlink launches, and then we’ll fly Starlink as often as we can.
“I need second stages to be built a little bit faster, but we would probably shoot for 35 to 38 missions next year,” Shotwell said.
Every Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch needs a new second stage produced at SpaceX’s factory in Hawthorne, California. But many of SpaceX’s launches utilize reused first stage boosters. That eases pressure on production teams, SpaceX officials said.
The company says it plans to build around 10 new Falcon 9 first stages in Hawthorne next year. That’s down from around 16 to 18 new first stages that SpaceX manufactured a couple of years ago. The reduction in the booster build rate has allowed SpaceX to reassign engineers and technicians to other roles within the company, officials said.
The Crew Dragon’s abort test in January will utilize a Falcon 9 rocket launched from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Around a minute-and-a-half after launch, the Falcon 9’s Merlin first stage engines will shut down, and the Crew Dragon capsule will fire its SuperDraco abort thrusters to fire away from the top of the launch vehicle.
The high-altitude escape exercise will prove the capsule’s ability to safely carry its astronaut passengers away from an in-flight rocket failure before NASA clears the Crew Dragon to carry humans later in 2020. The Crew Dragon will parachute to a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida’s east coast, where SpaceX teams will retrieve it and return it to port.
NASA is paying SpaceX more than $3 billion to develop, build and fly Crew Dragon spaceships to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station.
The in-flight abort test was previously scheduled for late December, then Jan. 4. The new target launch date of Jan. 11 is pending approval from the U.S. Air Force’s Eastern Range, according to NASA.
The Crew Dragon spacecraft SpaceX is preparing for the high-altitude abort test completed a series of engine hotfire tests on a stand at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in November. The test-firings verified SpaceX’s fix for a valve issue that caused the explosion of a Crew Dragon capsule during a similar hotfire test in April.
Shotwell estimated the explosion of the Crew Dragon capsule in April alone caused three to four months of delay in SpaceX’s commercial crew program.
Up to 180 Starlink satellites will be launched on the next three Falcon 9 missions dedicated to building out a fleet orbiting relay stations for SpaceX’s planned global Internet service.
The next launch, scheduled for Jan. 3 at approximately 10:20 p.m. EST (0320 GMT on Jan. 4) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Complex 40 launch pad, will add around 60 satellites to the 120 spacecraft SpaceX has shot into orbit on two previous Falcon 9 missions in May and in November.
SpaceX plans to operate the initial block of 1,584 Starlink satellites in orbits 341 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth. The company, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, has regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to eventually field a fleet of up to 12,000 small Starlink broadband stations.
SpaceX confirmed Thursday that it plans a Falcon 9/Starlink launch in late January from pad 40. The update followed similar announcements from SpaceX on the schedule for two preceding Starlink missions in late December and mid-January, both also from Complex 40.
The late December launch has been delayed to Jan. 3.
Shotwell had predicted SpaceX would perform more than 13 launches in 2019, but some of the missions were delayed.
“I think the only ones we delayed are a couple of Starlinks, and then crew,” Shotwell said. “For the first time, we’re waiting for our customers, which is a much happier place for us to be.”
Shotwell’s forecast of SpaceX’s 2020 launch manifest presumes the company can launch a Starlink mission as often as twice per month, each with up to 60 satellites.
“Production on Starlink is going really well,” she said earlier this month in a meeting with reporters at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. “I think the next flight (set) was shipped to the Cape. We build roughly seven satellites … Starting into the new year, you should see a mission every two-to-three weeks from us. We will hold a Starlink mission for a customer launch. But that should be roughly the cadence.”
The flat-panel Starlink satellites, built at a SpaceX facility in Redmond, Washington, fill the volume of the Falcon 9’s payload fairing. Each satellite weighs around 573 pounds, or 260 kilograms, and the Starlink craft stacked together form the heaviest payload SpaceX has ever launched.
Highlights of SpaceX’s planned 2020 launch schedule include the Crew Dragon’s first mission with astronauts, scheduled as soon as the first quarter of the year. NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will fly aboard the Crew Dragon to the International Space Station after launching on a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In late 2020, SpaceX plans to launch its fourth Falcon Heavy rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center with a U.S. Air Force payload. For that mission, designated AFSPC-44, the Falcon Heavy will target a high-altitude circular geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above Earth.
SpaceX also plans to launch two Dragon cargo missions from Cape Canaveral to the space station in 2020 — in March and August — and two Air Force GPS navigation satellites are slated to ride Falcon 9 rockets into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast in March and July.
An Argentinian radar observation satellite named SAOCOM 1B is scheduled for launch in March from Cape Canaveral on top of a Falcon 9 rocket. That mission, targeting a polar sun-synchronous orbit, was moved from Vandenberg Air Force Base and will be the first polar orbit launch from Florida since 1960.
SpaceX launches at Vandenberg will resume in November 2020, when a joint U.S.-European oceanography satellite named Sentinel 6A will lift off from the California launch base on a Falcon 9 rocket.
SpaceX’s busiest month of launches ever is just around the corner
With the turn of the new year, SpaceX has just entered what could become the busiest few weeks of Falcon 9 launches in the company’s history, breaking previous records for the most launches it has performed in a single month.
As of now, SpaceX is already scheduled to perform the first orbital and suborbital launches of 2020 – a definite sign of things to come if the company’s plans hold firm over the next 12 months. First up is Starlink-2, SpaceX’s third 60-satellite launch and second launch of upgraded Starlink v1.0 spacecraft, scheduled to launch no earlier than January 6th after a recent three-day delay.
Perhaps less than five days after that orbital launch attempt, SpaceX and NASA have scheduled Crew Dragon’s In-Flight Abort (IFA) test around 8 am ET (13:00 UTC), January 11th – set to be the spacecraft’s second launch on Falcon 9. Even then, that’s just the first half of SpaceX’s planned January 2020 launch manifest, potentially paving the way for a new internal record if schedules don’t slip.
In the nine and a half years Falcon 9 has been operational, SpaceX has averaged a bit less than 1.5 launches per month. However, the company only truly came into its own as a launch provider in 2017 and has since launched an impressive 52 orbital launches, meaning that almost 69% of the Falcon family’s launches have been completed in less than 36 months – a period representing just 30% of its operational life.
In those last three exceptionally busy years, averaging more than 17 launches annually, SpaceX has had only three instances where it launched three Falcon 9s in the same month – June 2017, October 2017, and December 2018.
On top of Starlink-2 and Crew Dragon’s IFA test, SpaceX has two additional 60-satellite Starlink v1.0 launches scheduled this month – Starlink-3 in mid-January and Starlink-4 near the end of the month. Especially in light of Starlink-2’s delays from December 30th to January 3rd and finally January 6th, it will be a challenge for Starlink-4 to remain in January, but there is definitely a chance.
While Crew Dragon’s In-Flight Abort test is suborbital, SpaceX would still set a record for the number of Falcon (9) launches performed in a single month if it can launch all four aforementioned missions in January 2020. In fact, given that Starlink-2 is now scheduled to launch no earlier than January 6th, SpaceX will actually need to launch a rocket every ~6 days to complete its tentative manifest – an impressive feat that would translate to more than 60 launches annually if extended throughout 2020.
Although nearly impossible if SpaceX is only able to rely on its Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) LC-40 pad for commercial launches, such a cadence might actually be well within reach if SpaceX can supplement LC-40 with a monthly or bimonthly launch from its Kennedy Space Center LC-39A pad. Primarily meant to support Crew Dragon, Cargo Dragon 2, and Falcon Heavy launches, Pad 39A nevertheless can and did host numerous Falcon 9 satellite launches in 2017, and some recent FCC filings indicate that SpaceX is considering additional commercial launches from 39A in 2020.
In fact, including Crew Dragon’s IFA and a Falcon Heavy launch for the USAF scheduled in late-2020, Pad 39A is already scheduled to support as many as five launches for NASA and the Air Force. If, say, SpaceX schedules and additional five commercial Falcon 9 missions from Pad 39A in 2020, LC-40 can get away with one Falcon 9 launch every two weeks – already well within reach as long as the rockets and payloads are ready.
SpaceX currently has plans to launch as many as 36-38 separate orbital missions in 2020, a number that perfectly aligns with the possibility of a few commercial missions launching from Pad 39A this year. In short, SpaceX is on track to potentially kick off 2020 with its busiest month of rocket launches ever – a perfect sign of the company’s equally ambitious plans for the rest of the year.
Quelle: TESLARATI
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Update: 3.01.2020
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SpaceX now targeting new date for Starlink launch from Cape Canaveral
SpaceX is now targeting no earlier than next week for the Space Coast's first launch of the year, the result of inclement weather expected to roll in over the next several days.
Teams are looking to launch a Falcon 9 rocket with 60 Starlink internet communications satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station no earlier than 9:09 p.m. Monday night. Launch Complex 40 will host the attempt.
Conditions during the launch window, which will stay open until 9:29 p.m., are expected to be more than 90% "go" for liftoff. The only concern noted by the 45th Weather Squadron is the possible presence of cumulus clouds during the 20-minute opportunity.
The flight will mark SpaceX's third Starlink mission and bring the company's constellation size up to 180 satellites. The effort's goal is to beam internet connectivity down to users on the ground, who will only need a laptop-sized terminal to gain access.
SpaceX is also scheduled to host the Eastern Range's next launch on Jan. 11, known as the Crew Dragon capsule's in-flight abort test. The mission will take the uncrewed capsule to a specified altitude, then initiate a mock emergency, forcing the spacecraft to use its abort engines and push away from the rocket. The booster is expected to break apart over the Atlantic Ocean.
If successful, it will pave the way for SpaceX to launch astronauts to the International Space Station sometime in the first half of this year.
Quelle: Florida Today
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Good weather predicted for Cape Canaveral’s first launch of 2020
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.
The 60 small satellites will bring the total number of Starlink Internet relay stations launched by SpaceX to 180, giving Elon Musk’s space company the world’s largest largest fleet of commercial spacecraft.
The launch targeted for Monday, Jan. 6, has been delayed several days, first from Dec. 30 and then from Jan. 3. It will mark the first launch in a packed slate of missions from Cape Canaveral in 2020, which could see more than 30 launches by SpaceX and United Launch Alliance if schedules hold.
The Florida spaceport was the departure point for 16 orbital launches in 2019, plus an atmospheric test flight of NASA’s Orion crew capsule to demonstrate the ship’s launch abort system.
Liftoff of SpaceX’s 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket is set for 9:19 p.m. EST Monday (0219 GMT Tuesday) from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad.
The mission will mark the 78th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010, and the 81st flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 family, which includes three launches by the triple-core Falcon Heavy vehicle.
A pre-launch test-firing of the Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled this weekend at Cape Canaveral.
The weather team at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station predicts a greater than 90 percent chance of acceptable conditions for launch Monday night.
“Strong and gusty northwest winds behind a frontal passage on Saturday will bring cool and dry weather through the weekend and into early next week,” meteorologists from the 45th Weather Squadron wrote in a forecast issued Thursday. “Strong high pressure will build across the southeastern U.S. on Sunday, (and) is forecast to be centered across Florida by Monday night. This will bring dry conditions and light northerly flow for the primary launch window.”
The only slight weather concern in the forecast Monday night is with the cumulus cloud rule.
Forecasters expect mostly clear skies, good visibility and northerly winds of 5 to 10 mph at launch time Monday night. The temperature should be around 57 degrees Fahrenheit.
If the launch is delayed to Tuesday night, the liftoff time will move around 20 minutes earlier. There is an 80 percent chance of favorable weather Tuesday night, with slightly higher odds of cloudiness that could breach the cumulus cloud rule.
The launch Monday will kick off a brisk pace of launches by SpaceX planned for 2020.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, said last month the company could perform as many as 35 to 38 launches this year from three launch pads in Florida and California. That figure does not include potential test flights of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship vehicle.
The bulk of SpaceX’s missions in 2020 will add satellites to the company’s Starlink constellation of broadband satellites.
SpaceX plans to operate the initial block of 1,584 Starlink satellites in orbits 341 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth. The company has regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to eventually field a fleet of up to 12,000 small Starlink broadband stations, and has hinted in additional regulatory filings that it could seek to operate up to 42,000 Starlink spacecraft.
In response to concerns from astronomers, Shotwell said one of the 60 satellites set for launch Monday will test a new less-reflective coating designed to reduce the brightness of the spacecraft. The first 120 satellites were brighter than expected, raising worries from scientists that thousands oof Starlink craft could interfere with astronomical observations.
The company says it hopes to begin regional broadband service with the partially-complete Starlink constellation by the middle of this year, once it has launched 12 Starlink missions. Starlink service for Internet consumers worldwide will come after 24 launches, according to Shotwell.
SpaceX has not announced pricing for the Starlink service.
“All I know is you will be far happier with the value of the Starlink service than you are with your current service,” Shotwell said in December. “You will, for sure, get way more bandwidth for the same price, or way more bandwidth for less … You’ll be far happier with this. The value will be far greater (than with current Internet service providers).”
She said SpaceX is building about seven Starlink satellites per day at a factory in Redmond, Washington. Low-volume production of SpaceX’s ground user terminals is also underway in California, Shotwell said.
SpaceX is still working out its strategy for commencing Starlink commercial services.
“Between now and June … we’re going to have to figure that out,” Shotwell said. “We will do presales like Tesla has done. The initial experience will be bumpy. We’ll have early customers be part of that journey with us. We’re not going to fib and say it’s going to be the best thing ever. When you get service, it’s going to be great. But it will be bumpy for a while.
The U.S. military has a contract with SpaceX to demonstrate the Starlink network’s ability to deliver data to the cockpit of airplanes, the first of what SpaceX hopes will be a lucrative business selling bandwidth to the Defense Department.
“I think we probably will mature as a provider, and it should not be bumpy, really in ’21. By ’21, I think we probably will have figured out most of the problems.”
Quelle: SN
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Update: 5.01.2020 / 11.25 MEZ
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Upcoming SpaceX launch to be first supported by U.S. Space Force
A Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral during the JCSAT-18 mission in December, 2019. Photo courtesy SpaceX.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - When first rocket launch of 2020 lights up the skies over Cape Canaveral next week, it will mark the first official launch supported by the new U.S. Space Force.
As early as Monday night, SpaceX is planning to launch the third round of its Starlink internet satellitesaboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Even though it’s not a military mission, the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing will be supporting that launch by providing tracking, security, safety, and other logistics – as usual.
But, for the first time, the wing will fall under the U.S. Space Force. President Donald Trump signed a measure creating the Space Force as the sixth branch of the military in December after the U.S. Senate passed the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.
“I’m excited for the 45th Space Wing to be a part of the U.S. Space Force,” Brig. Gen. Doug Schiess, the wing’s commander, said in a statement released Friday. “Our wing will continue to do what we've excelled at for nearly 70 years: We'll continue our mission of providing assured access to space for warfighters and our nation.”
The Air Force has already been responsible for conducting a majority of the military’s space-based programs, and a wing spokesman explained that the new Space Force will expand that same role under the larger Air Force umbrella.
The Space Force will reside under the Department of the Air Force, similar to how the Marine Corps resides within the Department of the Navy.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has lobbied for the Space Force's main command to be based in Florida, but the defense authorization act included funding to house it at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, at least for now.
It's not yet clear what other impacts the change will have on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and nearby Patrick Air Force Base.
Quelle: FOX13
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Quelle: AS
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SpaceX Test-Fires Rocket for 60-Satellite Starlink Launch, the 1st of 2020
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 rocketat 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 Falcon 9 rocket out of its hangar on Friday (Jan. 3) and went vertical on the launch pad in advance of the planned test-firing of its nine first stage engines on Saturday. The two-stage rocket is scheduled for liftoff Monday at 9:19 p.m. EST (0219 GMT Tuesday).
But before it can launch, SpaceX put the vehicle through a routine launch rehearsal. The brief test, known as a static-fire test, is a standard part of prelaunch procedures and one of the last major milestones before liftoff. During the test, teams loaded the Falcon’s super-chilled propellants — kerosene and liquid oxygen — into the rocket before igniting the first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines.
The engines briefly fired at 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT), generating more than 1 million pounds of thrust while the booster remained firmly on the ground. Engineers reviewed the data before deciding to proceed with the Falcon 9’s planned launch attempt Monday evening.
"Static fire complete — targeting Monday, January 6 at 9:19 p.m. EST for launch of 60 Starlink satellites from Pad 40 in Florida," SpaceX wrote on Twitter shortly after the test.
But before it can launch, SpaceX put the vehicle through a routine launch rehearsal. The brief test, known as a static-fire test, is a standard part of prelaunch procedures and one of the last major milestones before liftoff. During the test, teams loaded the Falcon’s super-chilled propellants — kerosene and liquid oxygen — into the rocket before igniting the first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines.
The engines briefly fired at 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT), generating more than 1 million pounds of thrust while the booster remained firmly on the ground. Engineers reviewed the data before deciding to proceed with the Falcon 9’s planned launch attempt Monday evening.
"Static fire complete — targeting Monday, January 6 at 9:19 p.m. EST for launch of 60 Starlink satellites from Pad 40 in Florida," SpaceX wrote on Twitter shortly after the test.
In 2019, SpaceX launched a total of 13 times. The last mission featured a twice-flown Falcon 9 booster soaring for the third time as it carried a heavy-weight communications satellite for a Singapore-based startup and Japanese broadband provider on Dec. 16.
Now, the company will return to loft a third batch of Starlink satellites, on a Falcon that has already flown three successful missions. The rocket, dubbed B1049.4 (an internal SpaceX identifier), previously hoisted another batch of Starlink satellites as well as the Iridium-8 and Telstar 18 VANTAGE missions.
Monday's flight will mark the first launch of the year from Cape Canaveral, as well as the first launch under eye of the newly established Space Force. On Dec. 20, president Donald Trump signed a measure creating the U.S. Space Force as the sixth branch of the military, after a defense bill was passed by the U.S. Senate creating the new branch.
“Space activity is very important to our way of life and people count on us to make a difference,” Brig. Gen. Doug Schiess, Commander of the 45th Space Wing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station said in an email statement. "Our wing will continue to do what we’ve excelled at for nearly 70 years: we'll continue our mission of providing assured access to space for warfighters and our nation."
On board the veteran rocket is SpaceX's third batch of Starlink satellites, designed to provide global internet access. The company launched its first groupof 60 in May of last year, followed by an additional 60 in November, and plans for its burgeoning constellation to eventually be more than 40,000 satellites strong. Monday’s launch will bring the current number of satellites up to nearly 180, making Musk’s constellation the largest in orbit.
Musk said SpaceX will need at least 400 Starlink satellites in orbit for "minor" broadband coverage, and 800 satellites aloft for "moderate" coverage. With less than 10 more launches, the company claims it could begin offering broadband service in the United States sometime in 2020.
Weather conditions on Monday are expected to be ideal for launch. Forecasters predict a greater than 90 percent chance of favorable conditions at liftoff, with the only concern being cumulus clouds.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 6.01.2020
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SpaceX's next Starlink launch will kick off busy period for the Space Coast
Monday's launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral will ignite the way for a slate of high-profile missions over the next month, an appropriate premiere for the Space Coast's first liftoff of the year.
Teams at Launch Complex 40 are targeting 9:19 p.m. for the liftoff of the 230-foot-tall rocket with 60 Starlink communications satellites, which marks the opening of a 10-minute window. Weather for the attempt is expected to be at least 90% "go."
"Strong high pressure building across the southeastern U.S. will bring cool and dry conditions along the Space Coast for the next few days," forecasters with the Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron said Sunday. "Expect mostly clear skies with winds becoming light and variable by Monday evening’s launch window."
The latest forecast follows a successful test fire of the rocket's nine Merlin main engines at noon Saturday, a routine operation conducted before every SpaceX flight. But the test did differ in one major way: all 60 Starlink satellites were stacked atop the rocket during the firing, a departure from more than three years of tests without payloads.
SpaceX stopped firing rockets with satellites after a September 2016 Falcon 9 explosion destroyed a satellite – and a chunk of Launch Complex 40 – during pre-test fueling. That change meant teams had to raise the rocket, test fire, lower the rocket, attach the payload, then raise the rocket again.
Because Starlink satellites are built and operated by SpaceX, it remains to be seen whether the company will test fire rockets with external customer payloads in the near future.
The mission itself, meanwhile, will bring the company's internet-beaming constellation up to 180 satellites, or just a few short of Planet Labs, the No. 1 satellite operator in the world by number of active spacecraft on orbit. SpaceX ultimately hopes to deliver internet connectivity to users around the world, starting with North America first.
Monday's flight will mark the booster's fourth mission and include a landing on the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
The next month
Starlink kicks off at least two high-profile missions slated to launch from the Eastern Range over the next 30 days.
Just five days later on Saturday, SpaceX teams at Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A are tentatively scheduled to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on a never-before-seen mission: Crew Dragon's in-flight abort test.
After liftoff, the uncrewed capsule will detect an intentional emergency and fire its abort motors, pushing itself away from the "failing" rocket and saving the crew – if they had been on board. The booster is then expected to break apart over the Atlantic Ocean as the capsule descends to be picked up by rescue crews.
If all goes according to plan and data reviews look good, the in-flight abort, or IFA, will pave the way for SpaceX to launch astronauts from KSC sometime in the first half of this year.
Then on Feb. 5, a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will take Solar Orbiter to space from Launch Complex 41, a high-profile science mission developed by the European Space Agency and NASA. At its closest, the spacecraft will get within 26 million miles of the sun to better understand its heliosphere, or bubble-like region of influence.
"It will take three years to reach this orbit," the Solar Orbiter mission profile reads. "When traveling at its fastest, Solar Orbiter will remain positioned over approximately the same region of the solar atmosphere as the sun rotates on its axis, allowing unprecedented observations."
SpaceX is also slated to launch yet another Starlink mission with 60 more satellites from Launch Complex 40 sometime between Jan. 11 in-flight abort and the Feb. 5 Solar Orbiter mission.
Quelle: Florida Today
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Quelle: AS
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Update: 7.01.2020
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Quelle: SpaceX