EDITOR’S NOTE: The launch of the next SpaceX mission is scheduled for 6:01 am EDT (1001 GMT) on Sunday. Daylight saving time begins in the United States at 2:00 am local time on Sunday.
For the third time in 10 days, SpaceX is preparing a Falcon 9 rocket for launch on Sunday from the Florida Space Coast with another 60 satellites from the Internet Starlink. This time, SpaceX plans to extend the Falcon 9 booster reuse record to nine flights.
The launch of SpaceX’s next 60 Starlink satellites is scheduled for an instant opportunity at 6:01 am EDT (1001 GMT) on Sunday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The mission will be SpaceX’s eighth Falcon 9 launch of the year, and the third in 10 days, from two Florida launch platforms a few miles away. The two previous Falcon 9 flights on March 4 and March 11 each carried 60 Starlink satellites into orbit.
SpaceX transferred the Falcon 9 rocket for Sunday’s launch to platform 39A early on Saturday, launching the 229-foot (70-meter) rocket at a quarter-mile distance from an integration hangar on the southern perimeter of the launch complex. historic, once used as a starting point for Apollo lunar missions and various space shuttle flights.
Ground crews are expected to lift the vertical rocket at the end of Saturday to prepare for the dawn countdown on Sunday, when SpaceX teams will oversee the loading of the two-stage launcher with kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants.
There is a 90% chance of favorable weather for takeoff on Sunday morning, according to the 45th US Space Force Weather Squadron.
The Falcon 9 rocket due to launch on Sunday will fly with a first stage booster recovered from eight previous missions. The booster – designated B1051 – will be the first in SpaceX’s inventory to be launched for the ninth time. Two different first stages of the SpaceX fleet, including the B1051, are tied for registration with eight missions.
The rocket’s payload fairing, or nose cone, was also overhauled in an earlier mission. The shroud was launched on a Falcon 9 mission in January, and SpaceX recovery ships recovered the fairing from the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX officials said the latest version of the Falcon 9 booster can make 10 flights with only inspections and minor renovations between missions. With a review, the Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters could fly 100 missions, said SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.
Hans Koenigsmann, a senior consultant and former Vice President of SpaceX, said last month that he believes the 10-flight limit is not a “magic number”.
“We learned a lot about reform,” he said during a panel discussion on February 23 at the 47th Spaceport Summit. “We are learning … what to pay attention to and maybe some of them are obvious. We want to take care of the heat shield. There are some components of the engine that regularly need a certain degree of inspection to ensure that the seals are working, and so on. Therefore, we have learned with each landing. “
The Starlink network is driving SpaceX’s high-speed launch cadence. Koenigsmann said that SpaceX will soon reach the mark of 10 flights with one of its Falcon 9 boosters.
“I am pretty sure that we will get to 10 flights soon and then we will continue to look at the booster and make an assessment (if) we can move forward with it,” he said. “My personal opinion is that we will probably continue until we see more damage to the booster.”
Koenigsmann said that SpaceX will analyze the data instead of specifying a certain number of flights for each booster.
“We will inspect them regularly, at regular intervals,” he said. “And the next time you check that the engine has resisted and see if there is any damage there. For me, it’s an engineering problem. I don’t think the number 10 is a magic number.
“In addition, for example, we could start introducing new components at some point and really extend the life of the booster,” said Koenigsmann.
SpaceX has launched 1,265 Starlink Internet satellites to date. Some of these satellites were prototypes and went back into the atmosphere and caught fire. Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a respected tracker of space flight activity, says that SpaceX currently has about 1,200 Starlink satellites in orbit.
Launching on Sunday will be SpaceX’s 22nd dedicated Falcon 9 mission with Starlink satellites.
The Starlink network may eventually reach more than 10,000 satellites, but the first portion of Starlinks will have 1,584 satellites orbiting 341 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth on paths inclined 53 degrees from the equator. SpaceX has the approval of the Federal Communications Commission for some 12,000 Starlink satellites at a variety of altitudes and slopes, all within a few hundred miles of the planet. The low altitude allows satellites to provide high-speed, low-latency connectivity to customers and helps ensure that the spacecraft naturally enters the atmosphere faster than if it flew away from Earth.
Starlink is already providing interim beta service in high-latitude regions, such as the northern United States, Canada and England. More Starlink launches this year will allow for an expanded coverage area.
SpaceX announced earlier this week that the Starlink beta service will soon begin reaching customers in Germany, New Zealand and other parts of the United Kingdom, including Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. These areas are likely to receive beta service in “the coming weeks,” said SpaceX.
SpaceX is accepting orders from potential Starlink customers, who can pay $ 99 to reserve their place in line to obtain Starlink service when it is available in their area. For people in the southern United States and other lower-latitude regions, this should happen in late 2021, says SpaceX.
Once confirmed, customers will pay $ 499 for a Starlink antenna and modem, plus $ 50 for shipping and handling, SpaceX says. The subscription will cost $ 99 per month.
Starlink satellites are built by SpaceX in Redmond, Washington, and each spacecraft weighs about a quarter ton on takeoff. They are equipped with power-generating solar panel wings, krypton ion propellants for propulsion and displays to decrease their brightness for people on the ground, an attenuation added to Starlink satellites last year after astronomers raised concerns that the spacecraft would ruin some telescopic observations.
Like previous Starlink launches, the satellites will separate from their Falcon 9 launcher on Sunday in a low-altitude transfer orbit, then use their ion thrusters to move higher into the operational Starlink fleet at 341 miles high.
The first stage of Falcon 9 will aim to land on the SpaceX drone ship “Of course I still love you” in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Cape Canaveral about eight and a half minutes after takeoff. The drone ship will bring the veteran rocket back to Florida to prepare for a potential tenth launch.
The rocket’s upper stage, however, will guide the 60 Starlink satellites into an orbit at an average altitude of approximately 168 miles (271 kilometers) using two burnt-out engines. The launch of the 60 flat satellites is scheduled for 7:05 am EST (1105 GMT), about 64 minutes after takeoff from the Kennedy Space Center.
Send an email to the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.