The Starlink network is now available to users in 37 countries around the world, including North America, Europe, the Far East and Australia.
The American company SpaceX has successfully launched the Falcon 9 launch vehicle with another batch of 52 mini-satellites for the orbital constellation of the global Internet coverage network of the Starlink system. This was announced by the press service of the Elon Musk company on Wednesday, August 10.
The launch took place from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Tuesday at 22:14 ET (Wednesday 05:14 ET).
About 15.5 minutes after launch, 52 satellites separated from the second stage of the rocket in low Earth orbit (340 km). After SpaceX engineers evaluate their performance, the satellites using their own ion engines will rise to a regular orbit with an altitude of about 540 km.
The reusable first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, used for launch for the third time, approximately nine minutes later made a controlled vertical landing on a floating drone platform A Shortfall of Gravitas, located in Atlantic 630 km from the spaceport.
This is the 55th launch of a group of Internet satellites since May 2019 as part of the Starlink project and the fifth this month.
SpaceX has launched 2,957 Starlink internet satellites so far. Some of them failed or went out of orbit. About 2.7 thousand devices remain in orbit in working condition.
The company is currently the world’s largest satellite operator. The Starlink Internet network is now available to users in 37 countries around the world, including North America, Europe, the Far East and Australia. According to the Pentagon, the services of these satellites are also actively used by the US military.
In the future, SpaceX plans to deploy an orbital constellation of 12,000 spacecraft of this type (and subsequently 30,000) to create a full-scale network that will provide Earth’s inhabitants with broadband Internet access anywhere in the world. The total investment in the project is estimated at $10 billion.
It was announced yesterday that SpaceX will launch a new SPHEREx space telescope into orbit. The mission will be launched in June 2024.
Mintsifra presented a “combat” Starlink terminal
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Source: korrespondent
