{"id":12236,"date":"2020-09-03T22:14:12","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T14:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-more-starlink-satellites-beta-testing-well-underway\/"},"modified":"2020-09-03T22:14:12","modified_gmt":"2020-09-03T14:14:12","slug":"spacex-launches-more-starlink-satellites-beta-testing-well-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-more-starlink-satellites-beta-testing-well-underway\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites, beta testing well underway"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from pad 39A Thursday with 60 more Starlink satellites. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sixty more satellites launched Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center to join SpaceX\u2019s Starlink fleet, adding coverage to the broadband network as it is already \u201cwell into the first phase of testing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next 60 Starlink relay nodes blasted off at 8:46:14 a.m. EDT (1246:14 GMT) Thursday on top of a Falcon 9 rocket, riding SpaceX\u2019s workhorse launcher into an orbit more between about 130 miles and 210 miles (210 and 340 kilometers) above Earth.<\/p>\n

Nine main engines powered the Falcon 9 off pad 39A at the Florida spaceport, then vectored their thrust to steer the rocket toward the northeast to line up with an orbital plane in the Starlink satellite fleet.<\/p>\n

After finishing its job on Thursday\u2019s launch, the Falcon 9\u2019s reusable first stage booster landed on SpaceX\u2019s drone ship \u201cOf Course I Still Love You\u201d holding position in the Atlantic Ocean a couple hundred miles east of Charleston, South Carolina.<\/p>\n

The propulsive pinpoint landing marked the 60th time SpaceX has recovered a Falcon 9 booster, and it completed the second trip to space and back for the specific rocket flown Thursday.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Falcon 9\u2019s upper stage engine injected the 60 Starlink satellites into an on-target orbit tilted 53 degrees to the equator. Retention rods released to allow the flat-panel satellites to fly free of the Falcon 9 rocket around 15 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n

SpaceX declared success on the mission, which was the company\u2019s second launch in less than four days from separate pads on Florida\u2019s Space Coast.<\/p>\n

It was the 101st launch in SpaceX\u2019s history, and the 93rd flight of SpaceX\u2019s workhorse Falcon 9 launcher. It was also the 16th launch by SpaceX so far this year.<\/p>\n

After their deployment from the Falcon 9 rocket, the Starlink satellites were expected to extend solar panels and activate krypton ion thrusters to begin raising their orbit to the Starlink network\u2019s operational shell roughly 341 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth.<\/p>\n

With the 60 fresh satellites launched Thursday, SpaceX has delivered 713 Starlink satellites to orbit on 12 Falcon 9 rocket missions since May 2019. Some of the satellites, including those on the first Starlink launch last May, are being moved to lower altitudes and deorbited.<\/p>\n

SpaceX eventually plans to launch thousands of Starlink satellites, but the first tranche of Starlinks will number 1,440 spacecraft, according to Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX\u2019s vice president of Starlink and commercial sales.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe total global constellation we\u2019re targeting is 1,440 satellites, of which a good number of those are already on orbit,\u201d Hofeller said.<\/p>\n

Each flat-panel Starlink satellite weighs about a quarter-ton, and they are built at a SpaceX facility in Redmond, Washington, near Seattle. Extending on SpaceX\u2019s penchant for building hardware in-house, the aerospace company is manufacturing its own Starlink satellites, user terminals and ground stations.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Starlink megaconstellation is already the largest fleet of satellites in the world, but hundreds more will be launched in the coming months.<\/p>\n

Hofeller said last month that SpaceX is building six Starlink spacecraft per day, and plans to launch Starlink missions at intervals of every two to three weeks until completing the initial Starlink network of around 1,440 satellites.<\/p>\n

SpaceX has regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to eventually operate nearly 12,000 Starlink satellites to blanket the planet with high-speed, low-latency Internet signals.<\/p>\n

Kate Tice, a SpaceX engineer who anchored the company\u2019s launch webcast Thursday, said the Starlink team is \u201cstill in the beginning stages of our global space-based Internet constellation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we are well into our first phase of testing with our private beta program with plans to roll out a public beta later this year,\u201d Tice said.<\/p>\n

In a discussion at the ASCEND Space Science and Technology Summit last month, Hofeller said that the private beta testing is being rolled out in the Pacific Northwest. With roughly 700 satellites, the Starlink network has enough coverage to provide connectivity to users at high latitudes, but more launches are required to expand coverage to other regions.<\/p>\n

SpaceX has asked people interested in participating in the public beta test phase to sign up on the Starlink website.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs employees have been using Starlink, the Starlink team has been collecting latency statistics, and performing standard speed tests of the system,\u201d Tice said. \u201cThis means that we\u2019re checking how fast data travels from the satellite to our customers and then back to the rest of the Internet. Initial results have been good.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX said Thursday that the tests so far show the network has \u201csuper low latency\u201d with download speeds greater than 100 megabits per second. That\u2019s fast enough to stream multiple HD movies at once, and still have bandwidth to spare, according to SpaceX.<\/p>\n

Tice said the Starlink network is \u201cstill very much a work in progress,\u201d and SpaceX plans to introduce new capabilities to improve coverage and service.<\/p>\n

She said SpaceX recently completed a test of satellites in orbit equipped with inter-satellite laser links.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these space lasers, the Starlink satellites are able to transfer hundreds of gigabytes of data,\u201d Tice said. \u201cOnce these space lasers are fully deployed, Starlink will be one of the fastest options available to transfer data around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hofeller hinted at upgraded Starlink satellites in his virtual presentation at an aerospace industry conference last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith 1,440 satellites, that\u2019s when we get 24\/7 global coverage, and the plan is to not stop there,\u201d Hofeller said. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to launch, and with each launch, we can provide more and more capacity. There\u2019s never enough capacity. You can\u2019t limit what your kids want to watch, and what your family wants to consume. So we\u2019ll continue to densify the network.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX will deorbit older Starlink satellites as upgraded spacecraft come online, according to Hofeller.<\/p>\n