The planet’s two richest individuals, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, are involved in a bitter slanging match over their satellite mega-constellations. Their rival businesses, SpaceX and Project Kuiper, have lodged tit-for-tat almost daily filings with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with SpaceX saying that Amazon’s Kuiper is guilty of “stifling competition”. SpaceX is already asking […]
SpaceX launched 143 satellites on one rocket on January 24th including 10 of its own Starlink craft. The previous record was held by an Indian launch of 104 satellites in 2017. The impressive cargo formed SpaceX’s ‘Transporter-1’ mission, and while around 133 of the satellites were small, so-called cube-sats and ‘micro-sats’ it was nevertheless an […]
SpaceX launched another 60 of its Starlink satellites into orbit on January 20th at 08.02am Florida time (13.02 GMT). It was the 17th mission for the Starlink team and went flawlessly. It is also the first launch for Starlink this year, but it is expected that another launch of 10 satellites will follow over the […]
SpaceX delayed its initially planned January 18th launch for the 17th Starlink mission because of bad weather. Rescheduled for January 20th, this will be the eighth time the powerful booster had flown, itself a record. SpaceX plans to loft 60 of its Starlink satellites into orbit (at 08.02 am Florida time, 13.02 GMT) and taking […]
SpaceX is planning a launch on January 18th despite it being the Martin Luther King national holiday in the US. Weather permitting, SpaceX hopes to launch its latest batch of sixty Starlink satellites at 08.45am (Florida time) from Elon Musk’s Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre. The launch will take the Starlink satellites to […]
Last week Elon Musk’s SpaceX has asked the FCC for permission to launch 10 Starlink satellites into a polar orbit – tentatively on January 14th. The FCC has granted permission, but with some restrictions. The FCC, said the launch can go ahead to a height of 560 kms and with an inclination of 97.6 degrees […]
A comprehensive study of the world’s 2020 space activities from astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell (of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics) suggests that there are some questions over the in-orbit reliability of Elon Musk’s Starlink project. The report examines and itemises the assorted SpaceX launches, each of which have been remarkably successful in their ability to place […]
A Falcon 9 rocket completed a textbook launch of Turksat 5A from Cape Canaveral on January 7th. Turksat 5A will use its electric thrusters to lift itself to its designated geostationary orbit, a process which will take around 4 months. The satellite carries 42 transponders and occupy an orbital slot at 31 degrees East. Speaking […]
Normally SpaceX launches its Starlink broadband satellites in batches of about 60. But on January 14th it is planning a special ‘ride share’ for ten Starlink satellites as well as a number of other clients. These ten craft are designed to go to a sun-synchronous polar orbit and SpaceX has made a request to the […]
SpaceX has scheduled to launch Turksat 5A today (January 7th), subject to the usual weather constraints. The launch will take place from Cape Canaveral at 8.28pm Florida time. Space Force forecasters anticipate 60 per cent “go” conditions during a four-hour window at Launch Complex 40. The main concerns are cumulus and thick clouds that could […]