Monday, December 10, 2012

Starlink - SpaceX

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23-8-3 Elon Musk's Starlink used by Ukrainian forces - Forces > .
23-5-21 Space Warfare & Anti Satellite Weapons - warfighting domain - Perun > .



Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. SpaceX manufactures the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, several rocket engines, Dragon cargo and crew spacecraft and Starlink satellites.

SpaceX's achievements include the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1 in 2008), the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (Dragon in 2012), the first vertical take-off and vertical propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9 in 2017), and the first private company to send astronauts to orbit and to the International Space Station (SpaceX Crew Dragon Demo-2 and SpaceX Crew-1 missions in 2020). SpaceX has flown and reflown the Falcon 9 series of rockets over one hundred times.

SpaceX is developing a large internet satellite constellation named Starlink. In January 2020 the Starlink constellation became the largest satellite constellation in the world. SpaceX is also developing Starship, a privately funded super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary spaceflight. Starship is intended to become the primary SpaceX orbital vehicle once operational, supplanting the existing Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon fleet. Starship will be fully reusable and will have the highest payload capacity of any orbital rocket ever on its debut, scheduled for the early 2020s.

Starlink is a satellite internet constellation being constructed by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access. The constellation will consist of thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), working in combination with ground transceivers. SpaceX plans to sell some of the satellites for military, scientific, or exploratory purposes. The SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond, Washington houses the Starlink research, development, manufacturing, and orbit control. The cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in May 2018 to be about US$10 billion.

Product development began in 2015. Two prototype test-flight satellites were launched in February 2018. Additional test satellites and 60 operational satellites were deployed in May 2019. As of September 2020, SpaceX was launching up to 60 satellites at a time, aiming to deploy 1,440 of the 260 kg (570 lb) spacecraft to provide near-global service by late 2021 or 2022. SpaceX planned a private beta service in the Northern United States and Canada by August 2020 and a public beta in November 2020, service beginning at high latitudes between 44° and 52° North.

Concerns were raised about the long-term danger of space debris from placing thousands of satellites above 600 km (370 mi), and the negative impact on optical and radio astronomy on Earth. In response, SpaceX lowered the orbits to 550 km (340 mi) and below, and launched prototype satellites with anti-reflective coating and an experimental sunshade.

On 15 October 2019, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) submitted filings to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on SpaceX's behalf to arrange spectrum for 30,000 additional Starlink satellites to supplement the 12,000 Starlink satellites already approved by the FCC.

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