SpaceX rocket dazzles in California sky as it carries 10 satellites into space

A reused SpaceX rocket carried 10 satellites into orbit from California on Friday, leaving behind a trail of mystery and wonder as it soared into space.

The Falcon 9 booster lifted off from coastal Vandenberg air force base, carrying the latest batch of satellites for Iridium Communications. The launch in the setting sun created a shining, billowing streak that was widely seen throughout southern California and as far away as Phoenix, Arizona.

https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/con...4006900810.jpg

Calls came in to TV stations as far afield as San Diego, more than 200 miles south of the launch site, as people puzzled about what caused the strange sight. Cars stopped on freeways in Los Angeles so drivers and passengers could take pictures and video. The Los Angeles fire department issued an advisory that the “mysterious light in the sky” was from the rocket launch.

Jimmy Golen, a sports writer for Associated Press in Boston who was in southern California for the holidays, said he and other tourists saw the long, glowing contrail while touring Warner Brothers studio in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank. “People were wondering if it had something to do with movies, or TV or a ufo,” he said. “It was very cool.”

https://imagesvc.timeincapp.com/v3/m...50&w=1400&q=70

The same rocket carried Iridium satellites into orbit in June. That time, the first stage landed on a floating platform in the Pacific ocean. This time, the rocket was allowed to plunge into the sea. It was the 18th and final launch of 2017 for SpaceX, which has contracted to replace Iridium’s system with 75 updated satellites. SpaceX has made four launches and expects to make several more to complete the job by mid-2018.....

Bugger!, I live north of Vandenburg and was looking at my pint and not the sky last evening.
My 'bro, who lives in Spain, asked me about it this morning.....
Grrrrr.
f

So what happened to Zuma? All indications so far seem to a successful launch. Rumours are a failure to separate from stage 2 (not a SpaceX failure), but the blog in the second post seems to indicate that is unlikely. (Replace the * with a t as usual) URL disabled so you can read the Who.e string.

If you prefer you can Click through from my third link. (Marco Landbroek)

Regardless, it looks like the launch of the Falcon Heavy is about a week away - and they have another successful first stage landing under their belt.

https://www.space.com/39328-spacex-s...statement.html

[url]https://sattrackcam.blogspo*.com/2018/01/fuel-dump-of-zumas-falcon-9-upper-stage.html[url]

space.com

We watched the launch from our front porch. It is a pretty amazing sight to see, sure makes the windows and doors rattle. The sonic booms when it returns to the landing pad sure wake you up. Can't wait to see the big one!

Excellent amateur footage of the 7th January launch/landing.

Starlink and Tintin
 

Now you know what one of the uses for the Falcon Heavy is. I wonder how many Starlink sats it can orbit at a time.....

SpaceX launches Falcon 9 with PAZ, Starlink demo and new fairing

SpaceX has launched with the debuting of an upgraded payload fairing for the Falcon 9 rocket during Spain’s Paz satellite lofting from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Thursday. The launch, scrubbed on Wednesday due to Upper Level Winds, also carried the first demonstration satellites for SpaceX’s own satellite internet constellation. Launch occurred at an instantaneous launch opportunity at 06:17 Pacific Time (14:17 UTC).....

Paz was joined aboard Falcon 9 by MicroSat-2a and 2b, a pair of 400-kilogram (880 lb) demonstration satellites for SpaceX’s planned Starlink internet constellation. The satellites are the first prototypes in a fleet which may consist of up to 12,000 spacecraft.

SpaceX first announced Starlink in early 2015. The project will use satellites in place of traditional infrastructure to help provide high-speed broadband internet access around the world. SpaceX’s filings with the US Federal Communications Commission indicate that the constellation will be used for fixed satellite services (FSS), such as backhaul for transmitting data around the globe. The space-based architecture could be used to help bring faster internet access to more remote regions of the planet in the future. The Starlink constellation will consist of Ka- and Ku-band satellites orbiting at an altitude around 1,200 kilometers (750 miles, 650 nautical miles) and V-band satellites orbiting considerably lower – at around 340 kilometers (210 miles, 180 nautical miles).

SpaceX aims to have Starlink fully operational by 2024, with the final operational constellation expected to contain 4,425 satellites across 83 planes in the higher orbit, with a further 7,518 satellites in the lower orbits.

The MicroSat-2a and 2b demonstration satellites carry Ku-band payloads. They were expected to be deployed into approximately the same orbit as Paz. In showing footage of their deployment, Elon Musk also revealed their names: Tintin.


Paz was SpaceX’s fourth launch of 2018, following the Falcon Heavy mission and two Falcon 9 flights in January that carried the Zuma spacecraft for Northrop Grumman and GovSat-1 for LuxGovSat and its parent company SES.

The Paz mission was the first of two SpaceX launches in February with Spanish payloads. The second, which will carry the HispaSat 30W-6 communications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit, is due to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the early hours of next Sunday morning.

Ramping up, so to speak.

Iridium NEXT-5 satellites ride to orbit on SpaceX Falcon 9

SpaceX conducted the fifth launch of its contract with Iridium Communications Friday, deploying ten more satellites to bring Iridium’s next-generation fleet up to a total of fifty satellites in orbit. Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base at 07:13:51 Pacific Daylight Time (14:13 UTC).....

Friday’s launch was one of eight that SpaceX is conducting for Virginia-based Iridium Communications, to deploy a total of seventy-five Iridium-NEXT satellites into low Earth orbit. SpaceX began deploying the constellation with four launches last year – the remaining launches will take place in 2018 with Saturday’s the first of the year......

The Iridium launch is the first of two that SpaceX will conduct over the Easter weekend. Another Falcon 9 is due to lift off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Monday carrying an unmanned Dragon spacecraft to orbit on its CRS-14 mission to the International Space Station.

How do they space them out?

I thought Iridium went bust?

Gertrude, do so research. The original company went bankrupt - but the satellites were in orbit and those who bought them have made a fortune.

Just like the railways in the UK when they started...

From:- Iridium NEXT-5 satellites ride to orbit on SpaceX Falcon 9.

Well, it is the traditional way of doing infrastructure in the UK, but I hadn't realised that this business model had spread to space. Why anyone invests in these things at the construction stage when they know perfectly well that the first owner is going to go bust is a mystery to me.

From what I remember, Iridium phones were expected to be a huge market for people who travelled a lot, particularly to remote areas.

But, by the time the satellites were up there, we had a massive expansion of cellphone coverage, so much of the market had gone away.

They sent Zuma into space?

About bloody time!

Mac

Launch teams are ready to kick off a busy month for the Space Coast with the Monday afternoon liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with supplies destined for the International Space Station.

About 5,800 pounds of cargo and science experiments will vault off the pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 in a Dragon spacecraft during an instantaneous window that opens at 4:30 p.m. The window pushes back to 4:08 p.m. in the event of a delay to Tuesday.

The mission, SpaceX's 14th under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services Contract, marks the second time the agency has flown on a combination of a previously flown booster and Dragon spacecraft. The 156-foot-tall booster first flew on CRS-12 in August 2017, while Dragon flew on CRS-8 in April 2016.

But unlike previous CRS missions where SpaceX landed boosters back at Cape Canaveral, CRS-14 will not include a local recovery and instead focus on providing data as part of an expendable "demonstration mission."....

Another successful Falcon 9 launch - and recovery. This time the first stage landed on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in mid-Atlantic.

It almost seems routine now, but it must be remembered nobody else can do anything like it at all.

I still think it's pretty gob-smacking technology, particularly the relatively short time between design and production.

Compare it with any military aircraft project, for example, and it really illustrates well how damned good SpaceX are at this stuff.

For example, SpaceX was founded in 2002, and we have a pretty reliable production vehicle working now, 16 years after the company was founded and only 7 years after SpaceX announced that it was developing a reusable delivery vehicle.

Lockheed Martin started F-35 development in 1992, first flew the aircraft 14 years later in 2006 and it first entered service 11 years after that, in 2015.

We are now living in an age where the science fiction of our childhood is now science fact. When I was a kid, I dreamed of toy helicopters that could really fly and devices that you could ask any question imaginable. I thought about watches that enabled you to talk to anyone else on the planet and television that could show you any programme at any time. We now have Elon Musk leading the way in access to space and doing a grand job of dazzling the world with self landing rocket stages.


We are living in great times.