SpaceX plans ‘ride share’ Starlink launch
January 7, 2021
By Chris Forrester
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 FCC to amend the FCC’s existing permissions for these craft.
SpaceX already has FCC permission to amend orbits from 1110-1325 kms to 550 kms (made in April last year). It is now asking the FCC to further amend its permissions and to launch the 10 craft (from 1275 kms) to 560 kms.
The SpaceX scheme suggests to the FCC that if permission is granted then the 10 satellites will be co-passengers on its planned Transporter-1 mission, described as a dedicated rideshare mission and with a large manifest of satellite devices on board including craft from NanoRacks, NanoAvionics, Exolaunch, Swarm Technologies, Spaceflight, HawkEye, NASA, iQPS, Umbra Labs, Celestis, Astrocast, Tyvax Nano-Satellite Systems, US DOD, USAF, KelplarianTech, NearSpace, Space Domain Awareness, R2, LINCOLNSHIRE, inOrbit, PlanetiQ, Capella, Kepler, Astro Digital, D-Orbit, Israel Defense, spaceQ, and UVSQ.