[ad_1]
The company also launched its first navigation satellite for the US military, as part of a victory against Boeing and Lockheed-Martin.
The SpaceX space transportation company completed its first mission for the US military with the launch of a navigation satellite worth $ 500 million (394 million pounds sterling).
The company also revealed that she had begun to build a prototype of her Mars rocket planned at her base in Texas.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 with Lockheed Martin satellite was launched Sunday in Cape Canaveral, Florida shortly before 9 am local time.
The takeoff followed four launches planned during the previous week, all of which had been canceled for meteorological or technical reasons.
GPS III
This launch is a success for SpaceX, which fought to force the US military to open such launches to the competition.
In the past, military satellites have generally been put into orbit by the Boeing and Lockheed-Martin military companies.
SpaceX sued the US Air Force in 2014 because of this arrangement and the following year it had agreed to intensify competition. SpaceX won the $ 83 million contract for the current satellite in 2016.
The GPS III satellite is one of 32 produced by Lockheed under a $ 12.6 billion Air Force contract, the next game to be launched in mid-2019.
& # 39; Very heavy & # 39;
Incidentally, Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, said this weekend that the company had begun to build a prototype of its Mars "Starship" rocket, which is expected to roll on top of a life-saving craft called "Super Heavy ".
Starship formerly called "Big Falcon Spaceship", while Super Heavy was dubbed "Big Falcon Booster", the name change being made in November with design changes.
Musk posted an image of a Starship component on Twitter, confirming that social media reports that such pieces were arriving at the SpaceX launch site in Boca Chica, Texas.
He added that the prototype was a test vehicle to be launched in early 2019.
"I will make a full technical presentation of Starship after the theft of the vehicle we are building in Texas, so hopefully in March / April," Musk said over the weekend. Twitter.
He added that the test ship was 30 feet in diameter, but its height was lower than that of Starship, while the prototype of the Super Heavy would be built at the scale of its size.
The segments are made in the port of Los Angeles, he said.
Before the last refit of the vehicle in November, Musk announced at the end of October that SpaceX was still aiming to meet the schedule for the launch of a crew on Mars in 2024.
[ad_2]
Source link
