Elon Musk Launched 60 More Satellites
Elon Musk and his SpaceX launched 60 more satellites into space.
Now the company SpaceX of Elon Musk is the largest satellite operator in the world, having at its disposal an orbital constellation of 300 spacecraft.
Wow! Just imagine, dude spends huge resources just to provide the fucking planet with free internet. Yes, it’s stupid to think that he will not have a profit but just think about how cool he is!
On Monday, February 17, SpaceX launched a heavy Falcon 9 vehicle with 60 mini-satellites to further deploy of Starlink global Internet network. At the same time, the first stage of the rocket was lost, said the press service of the company.
So, the launch of a two-stage rocket was carried out at 10:05, East Coast time of the USA from the 40th launch complex at the NASA cosmodrome at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Given the withdrawal of current satellites, the SpaceX orbital constellation will have already consist of 300 Starlink spacecraft.
The first reusable stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle was used for the fourth time. Eight minutes and 24 seconds after the launch, it was supposed to automatically land softly on the “Of Course I Still Love You” floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean about 630 km from the cosmodrome at Cape Canaveral. However, this time the stage fell into the ocean. In the published video from the platform, you can see smoke appearing next to it.
However, despite the failure to return part of the launch vehicle, the Falcon 9 successfully launched a new batch of 60 Starlink mini-satellites into low Earth orbit. Now the SpaceX orbital constellation consists of 300 spacecraft and it is the largest in the world. Currently, the company of Elon Musk is the largest satellite operator in the world!
For the first time, the Starlink satellite group will be launched into an elliptical orbit ranging in altitude from 212 to 386 km. After SpaceX engineers check their operability, satellites using their own ion engines will go into a standard orbit with an altitude of 550 km. All previous Starlink satellites were placed in a circular orbit.
This is the fifth launch into the orbit of a group of Internet satellites under the Starlink project. The first 60 satellites were launched in late May, and the second ‒ in November 2019, the third and fourth ‒ in January 2020.
In total, SpaceX plans to deploy an orbital constellation of 12 thousand spacecraft of this type (and subsequently 30 thousand) to create a full-blown network that will provide Earth’s inhabitants with broadband Internet access anywhere in the world. The total investment for the project is estimated at $ 10 billion.
Elon Musk said that the minimum coverage would require at least six missile launches with 60 satellites, that is 360 devices, and for the average ‒ 12 launches, which would create a group of 720 devices.
Soon, all these Internet providers will not be needed. After all, we have genius Elon Musk! Monument to this dude right now!
