The deployment occurred over the remote Pacific Ocean outside the range of ground station coverage. The drone ship will return the rocket to the Port of Long Beach in California for refurbishment and assignment to another mission.Īfter reaching an on-target orbit, the Falcon 9’s upper stage released the stack of 51 flat-panel satellites about 15 minutes into the mission. The booster on Monday night’s flight was designated B1049, and made its 10th trip to space and back, tying a record for the most-flown rocket in SpaceX’s inventory. The first stage descended to a smooth propulsive touchdown on one of SpaceX’s rocket landing platforms, named “Of Course I Still Love You,” stationed a few hundred miles downrange in the Pacific Ocean. Moments after second stage ignition, the rocket shed its two-piece, clamshell-like payload fairing to fall into the Pacific Ocean. ![]() The second stage ignited its single Merlin engine for a six-minute firing to attain enough speed to reach orbit. The Falcon 9 shut down its first stage engines and jettisoned the booster about two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. The powerful kerosene-fed engines drove the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket through the soupy fog layer within a few seconds, and the Falcon 9 streaked into a starry sky over California’s Central Coast.Īfter exceeding the speed of sound, the rocket accelerated downrange to the south-southeast from Vandenberg, following a trajectory roughly parallel to the coast of Southern California. The Falcon 9 rocket deployed the 51 Starlink satellites into an orbit with a tilt angle of 70 degrees to the equator, inaugurating a new orbital “shell” to expand the reach and capacity of the privately-developed internet network.Īmid thick fog, the Falcon 9 rocket lit its nine Merlin 1D engines and lifted off from Space LAunch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg at 8:55:50 p.m. ![]() The successful Starlink flight clears the way for SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket to launch Wednesday night from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the all-civilian Inspiration4 crew mission. The launch was the first dedicated Starlink mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, located about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles. SpaceX delivered 51 more Starlink internet spacecraft to orbit Monday night with a successful Falcon 9 rocket launch from California, introducing new inter-satellite optical laser links to improve how the network relays broadband signals around the world. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket streaks into space Monday night in this long exposure photo.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |