26.07.2023
SpaceX targeting late Wednesday and Thursday night for Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 launches
- At Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, another batch of Starlink satellites is set to liftoff on a Falcon 9 late Thursday, July 27, between 10:04 p.m. EDT and 12:44 a.m. EDT Friday, July 28.
At nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, another batch of Starlink satellites is set to fly on a Falcon 9.
Packed inside the Falcon 9's protective fairing, Wednesday's Starlink 6-7 mission features another batch of SpaceX's own Starlink satellites that deliver high-speed internet around the globe.
At KSC, the 230-foot Falcon Heavy is being outfitted with the Jupiter 3 communications satellite for EchoStar, the largest commercial communications satellite ever built. With its solar arrays fully deployed, Jupiter 3 spans nearly the length of the wingspan of a commercial airliner and weighs in at roughly nine tons.
As for SpaceX's Starlink, more than 1.5 million customers are subscribed to the worldwide internet service, which is available not only in remote and hard-to-reach destinations but also on boats, planes, and recreational vehicles. Starlink services are available to residential, government, and commercial customers.
By the end of this year, some mobile customers with cellular service provider T-Mobile could access Starlink services to send text messages with a plan called "Coverage Above & Beyond."
All told, SpaceX has sent nearly 5,000 of the satellites to orbit since first the first operational launches began in 2019. With no plans to slow down production, SpaceX anticipates needing to launch tens of thousands more to provide consistent global coverage.
Launch Thursday, July 27
- Company / Agency: Internal SpaceX mission
- Rocket: SpaceX Falcon 9
- Location: Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
- Launch Window: 10:04 p.m. EDT Wednesday, July 26, to 12:44 a.m. EDT Thursday, July 27
- Trajectory: TBD
- Weather: 70% "go"
- Landing: Drone ship
- Live coverage: Starts 90 minutes before liftoff
Quelle: Florida Today
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Update: 28.07.2023
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On Friday, July 28 at 12:01 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 22 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida.
This was the 15th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, Inspiration4, Ax-1, Nilesat 301, OneWeb Launch 17, ARABSAT BADR-8, and now eight Starlink missions. Following stage separation, the first stage landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Quelle: SpaceX