SpaceX launches 143 satellites on rocket in record-breaking mission

The mission, dubbed Transporter-1, carried 10 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink Internet network and more than 130 satellites for a variety of customers, including Planet, which operates a constellation of Earth imaging satellites, and ICEYE, which develops small radar satellites for tracking. dangerous ice.

Small cats have experienced a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years. They vary in size from the small size of a smartphone to the size of a kitchen refrigerator. And as they have progressed, hordes of companies have entered the market promising to provide services using new smallsat technology.

Typically, small satellites reach orbit by teaming up with larger, more expensive satellites, and the waitlist can be long and unpredictable. But there has been a major push in the launch industry to respond directly to the burgeoning small satellite market. Dozens of new rocket companies promise to build small-scale rockets that can provide quick and easy launches for small satellites. Two of these companies, Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit, have successfully put their reduced rockets into orbit and started commercial operations.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets are much larger than the Rocket Lab and Virgin Orbit rockets, and they’re typically used to launch heavy communications or spy satellites or Dragon spacecraft, which carry astronauts and cargo to and from. from the International Space Station.

Deciding to devote additional missions just to launching batches of small satellites is first and foremost a business, and a sign of growing interest in the industry.

However, as the number of devices in orbit increases, experts are increasingly concerned about congestion. Satellites have collided in orbit before, and while such incidents do not pose a great threat to people on the ground, the debris from the crash can remain in orbit for years or decades.