The word comes down that SpaceX Launches Demo Satellites For Their High-Speed Internet Project. The rocket is carrying a Spanish radar satellite as well as two prototype relay stations for Musk’s proposed plan of creating an orbital network of broadcasting stations.
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This could amount to $30 billion in revenue for the company.
They include OneWeb, a startup that’s attracted backing from the likes of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, Coca-Cola and Qualcomm. And that startup already has approval from the FCC to send internet satellites into orbit.
Once the first flock of satellites is up and running, SpaceX will go for a bigger flock that counts to 7,518 satellites at the orbit of about 211 miles in altitude. It will provide imagery for both commercial and government uses, according to a mission description. It would offer day and night, all weather imaging capabilities for Hisdesat’s customer, Spain’s Ministry of Defense.
SpaceX still has to work out finances and other technical details, but the Starlink project could be a boom to Elon Musk’s ambitious goals.
SpaceX was once again back on the launch pad early Thursday morning with their Falcon 9 rocket. “Falcon 9’s first stage for the PAZ mission previously supported the FORMOSAT-5 mission from SLC-4E in August 2017”. It’s successfully completed the task after more than 20 launches.
Usually, this part of the rocket is thrown away but if the fairings are able to be recovered Musk has estimated that the space company could save 6 million Dollars per launch.
A SpaceX rocket took to the skies Thursday morning following three delays over the past week.
In addition to launching these extra “passengers”, SpaceX also made their first attempt to retrieve the rocket fairings – the “clam-shells” that enclose the satellites, at the top of the rocket. According to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the fairing deployed a parafoil to slow its descent through the atmosphere, but still missed its target – a ship dubbed Mr. Steven outfitted with a “giant catcher’s mitt” – by a few hundred meters.
In past missions these have fallen back to Earth and sunk, but Musk said at the Falcon Heavy launch that he wanted to get a system in place to reuse them.
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SpaceX has been able to land its fairings in the ocean before, but this was the first time the company deployed Mr. Steven to catch one of the pieces.
