Keeping a fast-paced launch, SpaceX launched its tenth Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday in as many weeks, propelling 48 more Starlink satellites into orbit as the company continues to build its fleet of space broadcasts. .
“It’s time to let the American broom fly and hear the sound of freedom!” the SpaceX launch director told his flight controllers when the countdown was approaching zero. “LD is up and running”.
He was referring to last week’s comments Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin, which halted sales and service of Russian rocket engines to US companies as a result of sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He tweeted “let them fly over something else, their brooms, I don’t know what.”
William Harwood / CBS News
Falcon 9 rockets, including engines, are being built at the SpaceX plant in Hawthorne, California, as are the Cargo and Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying supplies and astronauts to the International Space Station. SpaceX founder Elon Musk immediately responded to Rogozin by calling his all-American rockets “American scum.”
Russia has severed ties with Western commercial space operations, although both NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency headed by Rogozin, remain in place for the time being. joint operations aboard the International Space Station.
Starlink satellites are designed to provide Internet access anywhere on the planet using thousands of small laser-linked satellites to transmit data to and from relatively small antennas and transceivers on the ground.
In response to pleas from Ukrainian leaders, Musk activated the Starlink Internet service and sent antennas and receivers to the raided country, along with warnings about avoiding Russian traffic jams or worse.
“They tweeted to Elon and that’s how we turned it on,” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said during a March 7 talk at the California Institute of Technology. “That was our permission,” he told Space News. “It was a tweet.”
He said activating the service “was the right thing to do”, providing an unfiltered news source amid the ongoing invasion of Russia. “I think the best way to defend democracies is to make sure we all understand the truth.”
With Wednesday’s flight, the total number of Starlinks launched so far rose to 2,282, though not all of them are still operational. Jonathon McDowell, an astrophysicist who maintains an extensive space flight database, said 2014 was still in orbit for Wednesday’s flight, including 1,989 that were operational.
But the active constellation already provides high-speed Internet relative to selected sites, including Ukraine.
The Falcon 9 carrying the last batch of Starlinks left the Cape Canaveral space force station at 8:45 a.m. EST, advancing in a southeasterly trajectory toward an orbit inclined 52 degrees to the east. ‘equator. The 48 satellites were released one hour and five minutes after takeoff.
It was the 144th launch of the Falcon 9 since the rocket debuted in 2010, the tenth so far this year and the 40th dedicated to the Starlink program. The first stage of the rocket, which made its fourth flight, successfully landed on a SpaceX dronship to mark the company’s 111th successful recovery and 84th at sea.
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- Elon Musk
- Ukraine
- Russia
- spacex
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