Updated February 21: Due to strong upper-level winds, SpaceX has postponed the launch to the same time on Thursday, 6:17 a.m. PST, 9:17 EST. CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to address the delay, “High altitude wind shear data shows a probable 2% load exceedance. Small, but better to be paranoid.”
Update: SpaceX has delayed the launch of PAZ and its Starlink prototype satellites from Sunday, February 18 to Wednesday the 21st in order to complete additional tests and checks of an upgraded payload fairing. Wednesday’s new instantaneous launch window remains unchanged – 6:17 a.m. PST, 9:17 EST.
Standing down today due to strong upper level winds. Now targeting launch of PAZ for February 22 at 6:17 a.m. PST from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 21, 2018
Not long after SpaceX’s recent, flawless Falcon Heavy debut, the company has completed a successful static fire of a flight-proven Falcon 9 on the West coast. SpaceX is preparing to send the Spanish government’s PAZ imaging satellite skyward aboard the same rocket that launched Formosat-5 for the Taiwanese government in August 2017.
Amazingly, this means that three of the four launches conducted by SpaceX in the last two months will have made use of reused Falcon 9 boosters, something I am choosing to take as foreshadowing for the coming months. By all appearances, the rocket company has been eminently successful in enacting a true industrial phase change towards the acceptance of flight-proven rocketry – a hard-earned achievement made possible by a combination of incredible reliability and unexpectedly positive responses from government agencies like NASA and the USAF.
A relatively light payload, PAZ weighs in just shy of 1400 kg. However, despite a lack of confirmation, it is known that riding along with the imaging satellite are two highly significant prototype satellites, built by SpaceX itself. Deemed Microsat 2A and 2B in FCC licensing applications, the small 400 kg satellites will act as SpaceX’s first-ever flight test of integrated satellite hardware – a massive step towards realizing the company’s dream of Starlink, a global internet constellation meant to provide service of the same caliber (or better…) as providers like Comcast, Time Warner, and others. This will be a major moment if successful, and will make SpaceX the first US company to successfully launch its first prototype internet satellites intended for low Earth orbit (200-1000 miles above Earth), a factor that would make them far more viable as a competitive alternative to ground-based internet than the current heavyweights in geostationary orbit (30,000+ miles above Earth).
Those distances are crucial: such a long distance between user and terminal (60,000+ miles round trip) results in what the average person would consider “lag” or simply unresponsive internet, where actions take as long as several seconds to register (such as clicking a link). This makes things like gaming, video chat, and more effectively unusable. However, thanks to the miniaturization enabled by the relentless progress of electronics technologies, tiny satellites (100-500 kg) with electric propulsion are rapidly becoming a viable alternative and threat to the massive (4000-8000 kg) communications satellites placed into geostationary orbit. Through mass production and lower costs to orbit, a giant network of magnitudes smaller satellites can realistically beat those giant satellites by being closer to the Earth. This means that more satellites in a given network will more frequently reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and be destroyed, requiring the constant launch of reinforcements, but this new paradigm is actually a viable strategy.
A beautiful string of Iridium NEXT satellites deployed into the sunrise. (SpaceX)
SpaceX’s own Microsats, prototypes for a constellation likely to be named Starlink, are quite possibly the most promising entrants among a sea of interested constellation operators. With the addition of laser-based communications links between each or most of the Starlink satellites planned to be placed in orbit, SpaceX’s constellation will be truly unique in its extreme flexibility as a giant, global mesh network.
By using lasers, latency (lag) will be far less significant and will enable SpaceX to distribute its network’s availability beyond the capability of any individual satellite, known as a decentralized network. As always, SpaceX’s choice to pursue such a configuration is extraordinarily ambitious. Still, the very fact that Microsat 2A and 2B are scheduled for launch just days from now suggests that the company’s near-silent satellite development program, employing several hundred people all over the West coast, has seen some considerable successes. In other words, it’s likely not a coincidence that the first flight test of a Starlink satellite will actually feature two satellites – one cannot test laser interlinks with just one satellite.
All things considered, fingers crossed for SpaceX on this flight-proven commercial mission. If all goes well with both PAZ and the Starlink prototypes, SpaceX will be one huge step closer to being able to provide truly universal, affordable, and high-quality internet.
Stay with us on Twitter and Instagram as Teslarati’s West Coast photojournalist, Pauline Acalin, will bring us on the ground coverage at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base ahead of, and on the day of, the PAZ mission.
Follow along live as we cover these exciting proceedings live on social media!
Teslarati – Instagram – Twitter
Pauline Acalin – Twitter
Eric Ralph – Twitter
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I think these test satellites are close to the final size, they have to do almost everything the final design does except inter-satellite communications. They need only 1 LASER link between these two satellites but when the constellation is up they will need minimum of 6 and probably about 10 (+ spares?) LASER links to communicate with nearby sats.
Lol not even close. At the beginning constellation will be made up of 4,425 satellites. When the first 800 satellites are lunched and running, coverage of U.S will be available. After the first batch of 4,425 satellites, they plan to lunch another 7,518 satellites. The whole constellation will be made up of more than 12,000 satellites.
'SpaceX’s recent, flawless Falcon Heavy debut' It was not flawless, they lost the center booster that was supposed to land on OCISLY.
Also how is it that you describe a 400kg satellite as tiny and micro. Micro satellites are cube sats. You say it is magnitudes smaller than a 6000kg satellite, that is only one magnitude. I suggest that 400kg is not tiny, but mid sized.
Aside from these nit-picks, good article.
It was flawless. I don't think you understand the term test lunch. Whole point of the lunch was to see weather it would hold together or blow up. The landings are an extremely small part of the test and aren't that important at all. Because you can't land a rocket if it explodes on take off. Plus the problem with main core was a simple problem that can be fixed easily. What's important is that it didn't explode and design works. Also, it's funny and amazing that you're criticizing them on test lunch with a new vehicle for only landing two rockets. No other country or company can even dream of landing one rocket. (Except Blue Origin, they're doing pretty good so far)
Lol not even close. At the beginning constellation will be made up of 4,425 satellites. When the first 800 satellites are lunched and running, coverage of U.S will be available. After the first batch of 4,425 satellites, they plan to lunch another 7,518 satellites. The whole constellation will be made up of more than 12,000 satellites.
What does the number of satellites have to do with the size of the satellites?
Edit: It occurred to me that you might be addressing my statement about 10 LASER links. There is no way they will attempt to have thousands of laser links on each satellite to communicate with satellites far away. My estimate of 10 may be low, but I think reasonable. Messages that need to be transmitted to satellites far away will be relayed by intermediate satellites. Precisely aiming lasers at remote satellites is much more difficult than nearby ones and the advantages of doing so over relaying is slim.
It was flawless. I don't think you understand the term test lunch. Whole point of the lunch was to see weather it would hold together or blow up. The landings are an extremely small part of the test and aren't that important at all. Because you can't land a rocket if it explodes on take off. Plus the problem with main core was a simple problem that can be fixed easily. What's important is that it didn't explode and design works. Also, it's funny and amazing that you're criticizing them on test lunch with a new vehicle for only landing two rockets. No other country or company can even dream of landing one rocket. (Except Blue Origin, they're doing pretty good so far)
Maybe you don't understand the word "flawless". Means NO errors. Yes, it was a great accomplishment. Yes they are the only ones currently attempting booster recovery, but it is now SOP for SpaceX, they attempted to land on OSCISLY and failed. I maintain that recovering boosters is for SpaceX part of the mission.
The breakup of the Comcast and AT&T monopolies can't happen soon enough.
Also how is it that you describe a 400kg satellite as tiny and micro. Micro satellites are cube sats. You say it is magnitudes smaller than a 6000kg satellite, that is only one magnitude. I suggest that 400kg is not tiny, but mid sized.
Aside from these nit-picks, good article.
