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starlink

$2bn of fresh finance for SpaceX

SpaceX has generated some $1.9 billion of fresh funding during August, and according to reports, is still looking to raise more cash. The initial target was to raise $2.066 billion. The cash-raising exercise follows on from SpaceX raising $346 million in May. The news comes as Musk achieves 4th position as the world’s richest person […]

August 20, 2020

Sixth flight for a SpaceX Falcon 9

SpaceX entered the record books a few more times on August 18th with the launch of its 11th Starlink mission. It carried 58 of its own broadband Starlink satellites on board plus 3 small satellites for imaging client Planet. In total this means that Planet has now lofted 21 ‘next-generation’ craft into orbit aboard US, […]

August 19, 2020

SpaceX launching 57 satellites

SpaceX is targeting August 18th at 10:31 am EDT (14.31 UTC) for launch of its eleventh Starlink mission, which will include 57 Starlink satellites. It will also carry three of Planet’s SkySats as extra cargo. Falcon 9 will lift off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Falcon […]

August 18, 2020By Chris Forrester

SpaceX Starlink launch on August 1

SpaceX will launch its much-postponed 10th payload of Starlink satellites on August 1st from its Florida base. SpaceX will carry 57 Starlink satellites plus two guest payloads for BlackSky. Launch is scheduled for 03.21am Florida time (07.21 UTC) from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. This flight will be the fifth launch for the […]

July 31, 2020By Chris Forrester

SpaceX nails landing; 100 Mb/s from Starlink

SpaceX launched a South Korean military satellite on July 20th, and just 8 minutes after launch brought down the Falcon 9’s first stage onto a textbook landing onto its floating barge (‘Just Read The Instructions’) positioned some 645 kms down range. This was the 12th launch this year for SpaceX. Not satisfied with recovering the […]

July 22, 2020By Chris Forrester

US Space Force happy with Musk’s rockets

SpaceX is due to carry out the launch of a military satellites for the US Space Force on June 30th. The launch is pretty routine for SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket, but despite having carried out 86 similar launches (and which included returning 47 to either solid ground or one of Elon Musk’s floating […]

June 30, 2020

Confusion over “nonsensical” UK OneWeb bid

The UK government is widely reported to have joined a consortium that is bidding for bankrupt OneWeb’s satellite system. The UK reportedly put £500 million (or possibly $500 million) into the consortium for a bid on June 26th. The UK’s interest in OneWeb is for a potential alternate space system to the EU’s Galileo GPS […]

June 29, 2020By Chris Forrester

Delays for SpaceX’s Starlink

First it was bad weather at the Cape which slipped the June 23rd launch to June 25th, then June 26th, but then the Falcon 9 rocket with a cargo of 57 Starlink satellites – plus a few guest craft – was postponed again just 2 hours before the planned launch – even though the weather […]

June 29, 2020By Chris Forrester

SpaceX launch rescheduled for June 25

SpaceX was due to launch another batch of Starlink satellites on June 23rd but bad weather at the Cape means that – weather again permitting – launch will now be on June 25th. This will be the 10th launch of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites and take the total in orbit to almost 600. Musk says […]

June 24, 2020By Chris Forrester

Starlink satellite service “this summer”

After a day’s delay, a SpaceX rocket placed the ninth batch of Starlink satellites into orbit at 5.21am, Florida time, on June 13th. The normal Starlink manifest is 60 satellites per launch, but on this flight there was also a cargo of three ‘piggyback’ satellites for San Francisco-based Planet Labs and its SkySat Earth observation […]

June 15, 2020By Chris Forrester