SpaceX, at 9:19 p.m. EST, or 2:19 UTC on January 7, launched its third launch of 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Falcon 9’s first stage supported a Starlink mission in May 2019, the Iridium-8 mission in January 2019, and the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission in September 2018. Following stage separation, SpaceX landed Falcon 9’s first stage on the “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX designed its souped up Falcon 9 rocket to fly as many as 10 times with only light refurbishments in between. The company has yet to fly a booster five times, but with four successful flights under this booster’s belt, it’s likely that it could fly again in the future.
This was the second payload of Starlink, its planned constellation of tens of thousands of orbiting transmitters to beam internet service across the globe. The mission was the first launch under the watch of the newly minted US Space Force, a military branch that President Donald Trump signed into law last month.
The new additions mean SpaceX now operates more commercial satellites in orbit than any other company. Planet Labs, also of California, has the next biggest working constellation at just under 150. Its spacecraft are used to image the Earth’s surface.
SpaceX has permission from regulators to launch up to 12,000 platforms but has talked of an eventual 40,000, depending on how the project develops. Two more batches of 60 could go up before the month is out, as the firm endeavours to start offering some regional broadband links later this year.
But the roll-out has brought a wave of criticism from astronomers, who complain of space traffic and that large numbers of such artificial objects in the night sky will ruin their view of the cosmos. To reinforce these complaints, scientists have been releasing pictures of trains of bright dots passing overhead – reflections from the satellites as they move around the globe.
One of the 60 satellites launched in this mission, one had an experimental coating to see if that could further reduce its reflectivity.
Keeping up with space traffic is becoming more challenging. Satellites are getting smaller and cheaper to launch. Scientists, companies and even schools can build one to photograph Earth for as little as $10,000. And constellations of thousands of spacecraft will increasingly be used for ambitious projects. The potential for collisions, accidents, misunderstandings and conflicts is growing. Each crash releases debris that threatens other space activities.
