{"id":18184,"date":"2019-01-11T22:09:19","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T14:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-final-batch-of-iridium-telecom-satellites-and-lands-rocket\/"},"modified":"2019-01-11T22:09:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T14:09:19","slug":"spacex-launches-final-batch-of-iridium-telecom-satellites-and-lands-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-final-batch-of-iridium-telecom-satellites-and-lands-rocket\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches final batch of Iridium telecom satellites (and lands rocket)"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_473299\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-473299\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-473299\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/180111-liftoff-630x395.jpg\" alt=\"SpaceX Falcon 9 launch\" width=\"630\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/180111-liftoff-630x395.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/180111-liftoff-768x482.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/180111-liftoff-1260x791.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/180111-liftoff.jpg 1504w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-473299\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from California\u2019s Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying 10 Iridium NEXT satellites into space. (SpaceX via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket deployed the eighth and final set of next-generation Iridium satellites into orbit today, closing off a two-year launch campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket rose into partly cloudy skies from California\u2019s Vandenberg Air Force Base at 7:31 a.m. PT after a trouble-free countdown. Iridium CEO Matt Desch counted down the final seconds.<\/p>\n<p>Minutes after liftoff, the first-stage booster separated and made an at-sea touchdown on a drone landing ship called \u201cJust Read the Instructions,\u201d hundreds of miles out in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n<p>The booster took on its first launch last September, to send the Telstar 18 Vantage satellite into space. During that mission, it flew itself back to land on SpaceX\u2019s other drone ship, based in Florida. It was refurbished for today\u2019s launch, and now it\u2019s eligible for a third go-round.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX has been experimenting with techniques to recover the Falcon 9\u2019s nose cone and save millions of dollars in manufacturing costs, but no recovery attempt was made today.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Blastoff! SpaceX Launches Iridium-8 Mission\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jnU1dhRxACY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While the Falcon 9 booster returned to Earth, the second stage and its payload pressed on to orbit. About an hour after launch, 10 Iridium NEXT satellites were deployed into their orbital positions, one by one.<\/p>\n<p>The $3 billion Iridium NEXT constellation has been called one of the biggest \u201ctech upgrade\u201d in space history. Beginning in January 2017, SpaceX has been putting the satellites into low Earth orbit to replace older spacecraft and clear the way for advanced services.<\/p>\n<p>Iridium Certis, for example, will enable new types of broadband applications such as drone command and control. Iridium\u2019s Aireon system will provide real-time, global aircraft surveillance and tracking.<\/p>\n<p>Over the past two years, SpaceX has put 75 Iridium NEXT satellites into orbit, including 66 operational spacecraft for the telecommunications constellation and nine on-orbit spares.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX launch commentator John Insprucker hailed the end of the launch campaign as he closed off today\u2019s webcast, which was watched by tens of thousands on YouTube. \u201cThat\u2019s not only 10 for 10 today, but that\u2019s 75 for 75,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a clean sweep for Iridium and Falcon 9.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_473309\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-473309\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-473309\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/190111-landing-630x323.jpg\" alt=\"Falcon 9 booster landing\" width=\"630\" height=\"323\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/190111-landing-630x323.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/190111-landing-768x394.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/190111-landing.jpg 902w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-473309\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A webcam view of SpaceX\u2019s Pacific drone landing ship, \u201cJust Read the Instructions,\u201d shows the Falcon 9 first-stage booster sitting in the bull\u2019s-eye after touchdown. (SpaceX via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from California\u2019s Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying 10 Iridium NEXT satellites into space. (SpaceX via YouTube) SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket deployed the eighth and final set of next-generation Iridium satellites into orbit today, closing off a two-year launch campaign. The rocket rose into partly cloudy skies from California\u2019s Vandenberg [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[479,4434,530,20,316],"class_list":["post-18184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-9","tag-falcon-launch","tag-iridium","tag-satellite","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18184"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}