Tag: Starlink

SpaceX launch experiences a failure of upper stage

10:52 pm

Second stage engine with leak

For the first time since June 2015, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch experienced a failure today after lifting from Vandenberg in California. During a launch tonight of twenty Starlink satellites, the upper stage showed signs of a fuel leak during its initial burn, and according to a tweet from Elon Musk, it exploded when it relit to make a final orbital adjustment.

Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD [rapid unscheduled dissembly] for reasons currently unknown. Team is reviewing data tonight to understand root cause.

Starlink satellites were deployed, but the perigee may be too low for them to raise orbit. Will know more in a few hours.

The arrow on the screen capture from the live feed, taken during the upper stage’s initial burn, indicates that apparent leak.

The first stage however successfully completed its nineteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

This failure ended an incredible string of 344 successful launches, a record unmatched by any rocket ever in the history of space exploration. It was also the very first launch failure of SpaceX’s Block 5 Falcon 9, the rocket’s final design that has allowed the first stages to be reused now more than twenty times.

The next SpaceX launch is presently scheduled for July 14, 2024, but we should expect that launch to be postponed while engineers investigate the failure tonight. We should also expect that delay to last no more than several weeks, at most.

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SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites

8:27 am

SpaceX early this morning launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its sixteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

70 SpaceX
29 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 81 to 44, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 70 to 55.

To get a sense of how incredible SpaceX’s launch pace this year has been, those 70 launches, completed in only days more than first half of the 2024, matches the American record for launches in a entire year, that was set in 1966 and remained the record until 2022.

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SpaceX now valued at $210 billion

10:46 am

As part of another sale of insider shares to raise more private investment capital, SpaceX has now been valued at $210 billion.

SpaceX will sell shares at $112 each in the tender offer, the Bloomberg report said, with the newer sales valuing the company much higher than a $180 billion valuation seen during a tender offer in December.

The report does not say how many shares SpaceX hopes to sell, or how much total new capital it hopes to obtain. Previous such sales have raised a total of $12 billion, money the company is using to develop both its Starlink constellation and its Starship/Superheavy rocket.

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SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites, using a first stage for the 22nd time

9:08 am

SpaceX early this morning launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral and using a first stage on its record-setting 22nd flight.

That stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic. The flight was so routinely boring for the launch crew that the flight director felt no need to even bother having anyone do a T-10 second countdown at launch.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

68 SpaceX
28 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 79 to 42, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 68 to 53.

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SpaceX completes two launches today, from opposite coasts

10:37 pm

The bunny marches on! SpaceX successfully completed two launches today.

First, its Falcon 9 rocket launched 22 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida. This was the launch that had been delayed several times by weather, and then by a tecnical launch abort at T-0. After several days of review, it lifted in the morning today with no problems, the first stage completing its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Then, about ten hours later a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off in the evening Vandenberg in California, putting 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, 13 of which are said to be designed for direct cell-to-satellite capabilities. This first stage also completed its eleventh flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

This post is a bit late because we had a five hour power outage in my neighborhood tonight, caused apparently when someone drove into a utility pole and knocked it over.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

66 SpaceX
28 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 77 to 42, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 66 to 53.

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SpaceX announces a mini-version of Starlink designed for backpackers

9:28 am

SpaceX today unveiled what it calls Starlink Mini, a smaller version of the Starlink antenna that can fit inside a backpack.

Early Starlink customers were invited to purchase the Starlink Mini kit for $599, according to an invitation sent to customers and viewed by TechCrunch. That’s $100 more than the standard Starlink kit. They were also given the option to bundle Mini Roam service with their existing service plan for an additional $30 per month, though the data is capped at 50 gigabytes per month.

That would mean a Starlink residential customer on the standard service plan would spent $150 month. SpaceX aims to reduce the price of the kit, it said in the invitation. As of now, there is no stand-alone Mini Roam plan.

The unit weighs only 2.5 pounds, with the first deliveries arriving in July. It is designed specifically for travelers who want a reliable internet connection wherever they go.

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SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites

8:43 am

After a ten day pause in launches, which included one launch abort at T-0, SpaceX yesterday successfully launched 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The pause is noteworthy because it is possibly SpaceX’s longest pause in launches this year (I haven’t gone back and checked). Consider this fact: A ten day pause between launches would have once been considered a fast launch pace. Now it seems like something is wrong.

The rocket’s first stage completed its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

63 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled for later today)
27 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 73 to 41, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 63 to 51.

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A new Chicken Little report: The mega satellite constellations are going to destroy the ozone layer!

1:50 pm

The American Geophysical Union, where science is no longer practiced
The American Geophysical Union, where
science is no longer practiced

We’re all gonna die! According to a new paper touted today by the PR department of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a new study has concluded — based on computer modeling — that the many giant satellite constellations totaling tens of thousands of satellites pose a risk to the ozone layer because the aluminium used in their structures that gets vaporized upon re-entry will interact with the ozone layer and destroy it.

You can read the paper here. From the abstract:

This paper investigates the oxidation process of the satellite’s aluminum content during atmospheric reentry utilizing atomic-scale molecular dynamics simulations. We find that the population of reentering satellites in 2022 caused a 29.5% increase of aluminum in the atmosphere above the natural level, resulting in around 17 metric tons of aluminum oxides injected into the mesosphere. The byproducts generated by the reentry of satellites in a future scenario where mega-constellations come to fruition can reach over 360 metric tons per year. As aluminum oxide nanoparticles may remain in the atmosphere for decades, they can cause significant ozone depletion.

The uncertainties and biases here are hard to count. First, it is a computer model (“Garbage in, garbage out”). Second, the simulations make many assumptions, most of which cannot be confirmed, or are simply absurd. For example, the model is based on a single “typcial, small satellite” coming from a specific orbit and elevation when we know these satellites will have many variations in size, make-up, and orbits. Third, the scientists admit they use “a worst-case scenario” for determining what would happen when the satellite re-enters the atmosphere.

Finally, and most damning, the whole premise of this threat is based on a somewhat implausive chain of chemical actions.
» Read more

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Pentagon wants to buy from SpaceX its own 100-satellite Starshield constellation

10:21 am

The Pentagon is so impressed with its experience using SpaceX’s Starlink system as well as its military-hardened version dubbed Starshield that it is negotiating the purchase from SpaceX of its own 100-satellite Starshield constellation.

Col. Eric Felt, director of space architecture at the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, said the plan is to acquire a constellation of Starshield satellites by 2029, contingent upon receiving the necessary funding appropriations from Congress.

Speaking at SAE Media Group’s Milsatcom USA conference on June 10, Felt noted that the military has been an avid consumer of SpaceX’s commercial Starlink services, but also wants to take advantage of the company’s dedicated Starshield product line and procure a government-owned constellation. In a briefing slide presented at the conference, titled “Satcom 2029,” Felt showed the DoD’s notional future satcom architecture including more than 100 Starshield satellites.

If approved for funding from Congress, this Starshield constellation would be used in conjunction with other military communciations satellites, which could also include satellites provided by other satellite companies such as Amazon and its as-yet unlaunched Kuiper constellation. The main advantage for such a system is redundancy. It is very difficult for an enemy to take the system down, since it uses so many small satellites. It is also cheaper to maintain and upgrade.

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SpaceX completes two Starlink launches hours apart

9:49 am

SpaceX last night completed two Starlink launches hours apart from opposite coasts. First its Falcon 9 rocket took 23 Starlink satellites into orbit, lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its 16th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Then, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg carried 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, its first stage completing its 21st flight (tying the record), landing safely on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

62 SpaceX
27 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 72 to 41, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 62 to 51.

10 comments

SpaceX and Rocket Lab complete successful launches

8:45 pm

This evening both SpaceX and Rocket Lab completed launches only about an hour apart but on opposite sides of the world.

First, SpaceX this evening successfully launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing safely on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Next, Rocket Lab completed the second to two launches for NASA, placing the second Prefire climate satellite into orbit, following the first launch on May 25, 2024. Its Electron rocket lifted off from Rocket Lab’s launchpad in New Zealand.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

59 SpaceX
26 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 68 to 40, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 59 to 49.

5 comments

SpaceX last night launched 23 more Starlink satellites

10:28 am

Go bunny! Last night SpaceX successfully launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 14th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

58 SpaceX
26 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 66 to 40, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 58 to 48.

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