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<\/p>\nThe much-awaited and heralded launch of SpaceX\u2019s Starlink internet satellite constellation launched on Thursday. With the twice-flown Falcon 9 rocket on SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, SpaceX deployed the first batch of 60 Starlink satellites. The launch was slightly delayed due to unacceptable Upper Level Winds scrubbed the first launch attempt. Then, a week ago, a requirement to update the Starlink software delayed the launch into next week. However, the latest attempt launched without issue at the opening of the window at 10:30 pm Eastern.<\/p>\n
Starlink satellite configuration:<\/b><\/p>\n
A flat and compact design that is \u201csignificantly more scalable and capable than its first experimental iteration\u201d, noted SpaceX in the mission\u2019s press kit.<\/p>\n
In all, each Starlink satellite is equipped with multiple high-throughput antennas, a single solar array, and (crucially) Hall thrusters powered by krypton \u2013 all designed to bring low-latency, high-throughput internet services to every part of the world.<\/p>\n
The Hall thrusters will allow each Starlink to independently maintain its orbit, adjust its position, and deorbit at the end of its operational life.<\/p>\n
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Starlink mission patch. (Credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n
Orbital position, navigation, and precision pointing for each Starlink is enabled in part by a Startracker system that is built upon the same Startracker used by the cargo and crew Dragon spacecrafts developed by SpaceX.<\/p>\n
More impressively, the Startracker system will allow each Starlink to independently track on-orbit debris and autonomously fire its Hall thrusters to avoid debris.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Rocket building kits (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n At the end of their lives, this current round of Starlinks will mostly burn up in Earth\u2019s atmosphere, with only 5% of each Starlink surviving atmospheric reentry.<\/p>\n Subsequent generations of Starlinks already under construction will be completely disposable, with 100% of the craft burning up in the atmosphere at the end of its lifetime.<\/p>\n Importantly, while this is the first batch of operational Starlinks to be launched, SpaceX does expect to encounter some issues as the satellites are deployed and brought into operational use.<\/p>\n This is part of SpaceX\u2019s overall philosophy of \u201cdesign, fly, iterate, fly again\u201d which has served the company well in its development of critical capabilities that just a few years ago were deemed \u201cimpossible\u201d or \u201cunfeasible\u201d by the larger spaceflight community.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n