SpaceX launched an epic rideshare mission to area at present (Aug. 16).
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 116 totally different satellites launched on the corporate’s Transporter 11 mission from Vandenberg House Drive Base in California at 2:56 p.m. EDT (1856 GMT; 11:56 a.m. native time.)
The primary stage of Falcon 9 landed close by the launch web site roughly eight minutes after liftoff, as seen within the broadcast on X, previously Twitter. It was the twelfth profitable flight for the veteran booster. SpaceX is anticipated to substantiate the payload deployments later at present.
Associated: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 2 Maxar satellites on record-tying twentieth flight (video)
Transporter 11 features a vary of payloads from totally different firms. One of many payloads, for instance, is an Nvidia Jetson Orin NX chip. The chip is a famous synthetic intelligence and edge computing graphics processing unit (GPU).
The GPU shall be shielded with a nanoparticle-infused polymer made by Cosmic Shielding Company (CSC), a spin-out from Sweden’s Chalmers College of Know-how. The college already did a take a look at on the Worldwide House Station, however Transporter 11 would be the first time it shields actual {hardware} throughout an area mission.
SpaceX has already launched 4 different missions up to now week, with two of these efforts dedicated to sending extra satellites into area for the Starlink megaconstellation.
The Transporter 11 launch is SpaceX’s eightieth of 2024, with greater than 70% of the satellites devoted for Starlink.
This text was up to date at 1:10 p.m. EDT with a barely adjusted launch time printed by SpaceX on its web site, and once more simply following the profitable launch.
