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Bad weather forced SpaceX to cancel plans to launch a record 143 small satellites aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday.
The team was told to recycle for another attempt on Sunday at 10 a.m. EST when forecasters predicted a 70% chance of acceptable conditions.
SpaceX Webcast
The dozens of satellites atop the Falcon 9 are the most ever scheduled for a single rocket launch, eclipsing the previous mark of 104 satellites established by the Indian polar satellite launcher in February 2017.
The mission, known as Transporter 1, is SpaceX’s first dedicated carpool flight in a program intended to provide low-cost access to space to operators of small satellites who might otherwise have trouble hitching up. rockets carrying bigger, higher priority satellites.
“I am delighted to offer low cost orbit access to small businesses!” SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted on Friday.
SpaceX charges a relatively low $ 1 million to launch a 440-pound satellite and $ 5,000 for every 2.2 pounds above that base level. The company says Transporter’s assignments will be carried out every four months or so, as needed.
The Transporter 1 flight highlights an ongoing debate in the aerospace community about the need to review the regulations governing space traffic management as more and more small satellites populate low Earth orbit. Among the concerns: the threat of collisions that could generate clouds of debris and pose threats to other spacecraft.
“Given the recent increase in non-traditional commercial space operations, including satellite maintenance, space tourism, and the deployment of a large number of satellites to provide internet access around the world, updates to Existing roles and responsibilities may be appropriate, ”NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Group said in a recent report.
“As it stands, there are no clear lines of authority to direct consistency among the many entities that operate in space.”
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