SpaceX launched a novel — and colossal — commercial communications satellite late Saturday, while also setting a new launch record for its Falcon 9 rocket.
The Falcon 9 launched into orbit from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and carried 34 SpaceX Starlink internet satellites as well as BlueWalker 3, a prototype satellite built by AST SpaceMobile that is believed to be the largest commercial communications pad ever flown in space is. The launch occurred at 9:20 p.m. EDT (0120 GMT) on Saturday evening (September 10), with the Falcon 9 booster making SpaceX history on its return to Earth.
Related: SpaceX’s Starlink megaconstellation launches in photos
“This is a record-breaking 14th landing for this booster,” said Jesse Anderson, a production engineering manager at SpaceX, during a live commentary (opens in new tab).
The mission also set several other records.
It was SpaceX’s first five-engine mission to deploy payloads in orbit, as well as the company’s heaviest ride-along ever. (BlueWalker 3 weighs a whopping 3,300 pounds (1,500 kilograms), Anderson said.)
“One of our most complex missions,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote of the flight on twitter (opens in new tab).
Meet BlueWalker 3 from AST SpaceMobile
While SpaceX’s primary goal for Saturday’s launch was to add 34 new Starlink satellites to its growing orbiting constellation, AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 satellite stood out for both its size and its ambitious mission.
The satellite, which measures 64 square meters when fully deployed, is the largest commercial antenna array to be launched into space. Its mission: to test new technologies to provide global mobile phone services directly to users from space. The goal is to close coverage gaps and provide seamless high-speed phone and data service in underserved areas.
“The reason our satellite is big is because to communicate with a low-power, low-internal strength phone, you only need a large antenna on a high-power side, and that’s a critical part of our infrastructure. ” Scott Wisniewski, Chief Strategy Officer of AST SpaceMobile, told Space.com in an interview. “We think this is really important to be able to communicate directly with traditional handsets, with no modifications to the handset, without additional burdens on the user.”
It will be several weeks before AST orders SpaceMobile BlueWalker 3 to deploy its spring-loaded antenna, Wisniewski said. During that time, the company will conduct a series of health checks to ensure the satellite is healthy, he added.
AST SpaceMobile has partnered with 25 wireless carriers, 10 of which will participate in the company’s planned six-month shakedown cruise aboard BlueWalker 3 to test its capabilities on six continents around the world. Those partners include providers like Vodaphone, Rakuten Mobile and Orange, with a potential reach of 1.8 million phone users, Wisniewski said. Earlier this summer, the company received an FCC license to test BlueWalker 3’s service in Texas and Hawaii in the United States.
To provide full coverage, AST SpaceMobile needs more than one satellite. “This is the culmination of our company’s R&D phase before we move to production satellites next year,” said Wisniewski.
The company plans to follow BlueWalker 3 in 2023 with five operational satellites. Ultimately, it aims to build a constellation of at least 100 giant satellites to ensure full coverage.
AST SpaceMobile is not alone in its quest for cellular coverage from space. Lynk Global is working on a similar project, and Elon Musk announced last month that SpaceX is partnering with T-Mobile to offer cellular service with its Starlink satellites.
Because of their size, AST SpaceMobile’s satellites could be visible to ground-based skygazers, and some astronomers have criticized the plan for its potential impact on ground-based telescope observations, according to a report by New Scientist (opens in new tab). If this complaint sounds familiar, it’s because it made SpaceX’s own Starlink constellation persistent when that company began launching dozens of them simultaneously.
A record for rocket reuse as Starlink grows
Approximately 8.5 minutes after launch from the BlueWalker 3 and Starlink satellites, the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket returned to Earth for a spot-on landing on the company’s drone ship A Shortfall Of Gravitas in the Atlantic. The landing set a new record for the number of launches by a Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
Ahead of Saturday’s flight, the Falcon 9 stage launched eight different Starlink missions in May 2020, as well as SpaceX’s first astronaut test flight for NASA (dubbed Demo-2); the ANASIS-2 satellite for South Korea in July 2020; the CRS-21 unmanned International Space Station cargo mission for NASA in December 2020; and the Transporter 1 and Transporter 3 ride-along missions in January 2021 and January 2022, respectively.
When Elon Musk unveiled the workhorse Falcon 9 Block 5 Booster in 2018, he said SpaceX’s goal is to fly it at least 10 times. With each subsequent flight, the company has pushed its limits on rocket reusability as part of its efforts to drive down the cost of spaceflight.
Similarly, SpaceX has continued to expand the size of its Starlink constellation and the number of countries and coverage areas in recent years. In August, Royal Caribbean announced (opens in new tab) It will use Starlink on board all of its cruise ships through 2023, with SpaceX already offering services to RVs, boats and homes around the world.
The company has launched more than 3,200 satellites since 2019, with thousands more to come. SpaceX plans to complete its original constellation with 12,000 Starlinks in orbit and has applied for permission to increase this to as many as 30,000 satellites.
On Sunday, September 11th, SpaceX plans to launch another Starlink mission. This flight, which will carry 54 Starlink satellites, is scheduled to depart from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:53 p.m. EDT (0253 GMT). You can watch this launch live at launch time on Space.com.
Saturday’s launch marked the 41st of the year for SpaceX. It was the company’s 179th launch overall.
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