SpaceX goals notched one other milestone in spaceflight reusability Wednesday evening when it not solely launched a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket booster for the 350th time in program historical past, but additionally carried out its three hundredth profitable booster touchdown.
The Starlink 9-14 mission lifted off from House Launch Complicated 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg House Pressure Base at 7:05 p.m. PST (10:05 p.m. EST, 0305 UTC). Nonetheless, in asserting the mission on its web site although, SpaceX simply broadly mentioned, “The four-hour launch window opens at 4:06 p.m. PT.”
For the third time in as many launches from California, SpaceX left the general public in the dead of night as as to whether or not the launch will likely be viewable by way of livestream. When it printed particulars of the launch on its web site Wednesday afternoon, it didn’t embrace a hyperlink to a webcast, nor did it point out the mission on social media.
Against this, SpaceX concurrently printed a launch web page for the deliberate launch of SiriusXM’s SXM-9 satellite tv for pc, which can raise off on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy House Middle late Thursday morning. Not solely did SpaceX embrace a hyperlink to the livestream for the SXM-9 mission, but it surely additionally posted to its X account asserting the launch. The Starlink 6-70 mission which launched from Cape Canaveral earlier Wednesday additionally had a webcast of liftoff that was introduced upfront.
SpaceX did find yourself dwell streaming the 2 earlier ascents from Vanenberg House Pressure Base, NROL-126 and Starlink 9-13. Nonetheless, in each instances, a dwell stream popped up nicely after the rockets had left the launch pad.
That ended up being the case as nicely with the Starlink 9-14 mission. SpaceX popped up its livestream about 44 seconds after the rocket left the launch pad. No clarification was given as to why SpaceX began its broadcast midstream for a 3rd time.
The Falcon 9 first stage booster for the Starlink 9-14 mission, with the tailnumber B1081, launched for a twelfth time. It beforehand supported the launches of two missions to the Worldwide House Station (Crew-7 and CRS-29), two climate-monitoring spacecraft (PACE and EarthCARE) and 5 earlier Starlink missions.
A little bit greater than eight minutes after liftoff, B1081 accomplished the three hundredth profitable droneship touchdown when it touched down on the SpaceX droneship ‘Of Course I Nonetheless Love You,’ positioned within the Pacific Ocean. This was the 379th total booster touchdown for SpaceX.
Onboard the mission are 20 Starlink V2 Mini satellites, together with 13 that function Direct to Cell capabilities. With this mission, SpaceX can have launched 349 DTC Starlink satellites for the reason that first such launch on January 2.
In late November, SpaceX obtained approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Fee to start rolling out mobile service alongside its home telecom associate, T-Cellular.
Thanks to @NASA , @NTIAgov , @NSF , for his or her coordination work with us, and all of our telco companions, particularly @TMobile !
We hope to activate worker beta service within the US quickly.
— Ben Longmier (@longmier) November 26, 2024
The FCC allowed SpaceX to make use of its beforehand approved as much as 7,500 second era Starlink satellites utilizing the V-band frequency from 340 km to 360 km.
“SpaceX is permitted to speak with these satellites within the beforehand approved Ku-, Ka-, E-, and V-band frequencies, in conformance with the technical specs SpaceX has supplied to the Fee, the circumstances beforehand positioned on its authorizations, and the circumstances we undertake at this time,” the FCC wrote in a Nov. 26 submitting.
“Authorization to allow SpaceX to function as much as 7,500 Gen2 satellites in decrease altitude shells will allow SpaceX to start offering lower-latency satellite tv for pc service to assist rising demand in rural and distant areas that lack terrestrial wi-fi service choices.16 This partial grant additionally strikes the proper stability between permitting SpaceX’s operations at decrease altitudes to offer low-latency satellite tv for pc service and allowing the Fee to proceed to watch SpaceX’s constellation and consider points beforehand raised on the report.”
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