While SpaceX is working for NASA’s manned spacecraft designed to send astronauts to the ISS, it also works with other companies to send satellites to the Earth’s orbit.
The latest update from this morning’s launch comes with some good news.
10 Iridium Satellites Are Safe on the Orbit
SpaceX has successfully launched 10 Iridium satellites to the Earth’s orbit a few hours ago. The communication company Iridium plans to replace its satellites, having 10 of them launched now and others scheduled in a few months from now.
To get to into position, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was launched this morning at 7:39 a.m. EDT from the Vandenberg Air Force Base (California).
According to the company’s spokesperson John Insprucker, the launch had only a second window to precisely insert the satellites.
With that in mind, and with a fob obscuring the rocket until being launched, the launch went smoothly.
With this mission, SpaceX also wanted to try completing two tasks: one was to land the first stage of the rocket on their drone ship and the other one was to catch the rocket’s nose cone with a second boat called “Mr. Steven.”
Unfortunately, the weather conditions were extreme for the second task, explains Insprucker:
“The weather in the Pacific is bad. We have choppy seas.”
In the live broadcast of the launch, he later said that the weather conditions were the “worst that we’ve ever had for trying to get a first stage on the drone ship.” But they had a successful landing on the drone ship.
And while everyone was hoping to see “Mr. Steven” in action as he would catch the rocket’s fairing with its huge net, it wasn’t meant to be. Insprucker stated shortly after 8:30 a.m. EDT that:
“They did see the payload fairing coming down, but they were not able to catch it in the net.”
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.