Josef Aschbacher, Director General at European Space Agency (ESA) has praised Elon Musk’s SpaceX, saying that the rocket launch company “has undeniably changed the launcher market paradigm as we know it.” Aschbacher, in a blog post for ESA, said: “With the dependable reliability of Falcon 9 and the captivating prospects of Starship, SpaceX continues to […]
SpaceX has scheduled the launch of Arabsat’s latest satellite for May 23rd. Launch is scheduled for 11.25 pm Florida-time, but the mission launch is very much subject to local weather considerations. A back-up launch could happen exactly 24-hours later if weather halts the mission. BADR-8 is a latest next-generation geostationary Eurostar Neo satellite from Airbus. […]
SpaceX is prepping for a busy weekend. On May 19th it will handle two missions: The first will take 22 Generation-2 ‘Mini’ Starlink satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the early hours at 04.41 UTC. Launch two will take care of the Iridium/OneWeb mission at 13.19 UTC and from Vandenberg in […]
SpaceX regularly reuses its Falcon 9 booster rockets. Reuse levels of eight or 10 time are now fairly routine. Indeed, some boosters have now flow 13 to 15 times. William Gerstenmaier, VP/Build & Flight Reusability at SpaceX, now says that booster refurbishing is taking place to extend the life of a typical booster to a […]
May 14th saw an additional 56 Starlink broadband satellites launched. The launch was followed by a successful landing of the Falcon 9 booster stage on the ‘Just Read The Instructions’ floating drone ship downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. The launch marked the 11th launch and landing for this particular Falcon 9 first stage booster, SpaceX […]
Brightline, a train operator in Florida, is installing SpaceX’s Starlink broadband by satellite service on 10 of its trains. The services connect major cities throughout the US state. The announcement comes following Starlink gaining regulatory approval to deliver its signals to moving vehicles. The ‘free’ service is initially available on five trains serving Miami and […]
SpaceX successfully added another 51 of its Starlink broadband-by-satellite craft in a flawless launch on May 10th from the Vandenberg Space Force Base. Following the launch, the Falcon 9 booster successfully landed on a floating barge, ‘Of Course I Still Love You’, ready for refurbishment and reuse. It was the third launch and landing for […]
The May 4th launch of 56 Starlink satellites for SpaceX represented a key milestone for Elon Musk’s broadband by satellite project and its Falcon-9 rocket. With these satellites moving towards their orbital responsibilities, SpaceX surpasses 4,000 satellites in orbit and will have launched 4,340 total satellites according to data from astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell at the […]
SpaceX is scheduling May 4th to launch an additional 56 of its Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Launch for the mission is targeting an early morning slot at 07.34 UTC, subject to the usual weather considerations. A back-up launch date is […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX scored three perfect launches over the past few days. However, it has emerged that Arianespace has lost an important contract to launch a satellite for Viasat. It has also emerged that Musk is budgeting to spend $2 billion on his Starship development programme. SpaceX’s three recent launches (46 Starlinks on April 27th, […]