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A SpaceX rocket carried an unprecedented number of satellites into space on Sunday, setting a new record for the most spacecraft ever deployed on a mission.
Dubbed Transporter-1, the mission transported 143 spacecraft to Earth orbit, including compact nano- and microsatellites from different countries and companies.
This breaks the previous record of 104 satellites, which were launched during an Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) mission in 2017.
SpaceX’s rocket was launched from the Cape Canaveral space station in Florida at 10 a.m., marking the first dedicated mission of the company’s SmallSat Rideshare program.
As the name suggests, the initiative looks like a sort of UberPool for satellites, allowing different operators to hitchhike into space on the same rocket and share the cost, rather than having to invest more. $ 60 million to charter an individual rocket.
As part of the SmallSat Rideshare program, it costs just $ 1 million to send a 200-kilogram spacecraft into sun-synchronous orbit (SSO), which houses imaging, military and weather satellites.
SpaceX aims to serve this orbit through regular service every four months, with the aim of providing “increased access to space for small satellite operators looking for reliable and affordable launching into orbit.”
Rocket designed to be reused
The relative affordability of the program is also tied to the design of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which was used for the mission and was developed for partial reuse.
The most expensive part of the rocket – the first-stage thruster that propels it out of the ground and falls once it hits its target – is able to land on one of the company’s drones linked to the rocket. ocean and can then be used for other missions. lower the astronomical cost of rocket launches.
Falcon 9 launches 143 spacecraft into orbit – the most ever deployed on a single mission – completing the first dedicated mission of SpaceX’s SmallSat Rideshare Program pic.twitter.com/CJSUvKWeb4
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) 25 January 2021
The first-stage thruster used in the Transporter-1 mission, for example, has already been used in four other missions, including for SpaceX’s Starlink program, which sees a constellation of thousands of satellites installed in Earth orbit to provide high speed internet access. worldwide.
The number of satellites is expected to quintuple over the next decade
On board the Transporter-1 mission were spacecraft from research organizations such as NASA and the Institute of Applied Engineering at the University of South Florida, alongside eight communications satellites from the Canadian company. Kepler and 48 shoebox-sized Earth imaging satellites from Planet Labs in San Francisco.
Ten of SpaceX’s own Starlink satellites were also launched as part of the mission – the first in the constellation to be deployed to polar orbit, where they will cross Earth from north to south.
This comes shortly after another Starlink mission saw 60 satellites put into orbit on January 20, as part of the company’s goal to establish a mega constellation of at least 12,000 satellites by the middle. of the decade.
With the advent of smaller, more affordable satellites and carpooling programs like SpaceX’s or the Vega program of European company Arianespace, the number of satellites in Earth orbit is expected to quintuple over the next decade.
This has raised concerns about light pollution among astronomers, as well as the increased risk of collisions and possibly addition to the roughly 6,000 tonnes of space junk already floating in low Earth orbit – including 2,550 of our planet’s 5,850 satellites. .
In order to combat this waste of space, Kyoto University recently announced that it is developing the world’s first wooden satellite in collaboration with Sumitomo Forestry, which would burn down completely at the end of its life.
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