SpaceX just launched fleet's leading booster on 14th flight
after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 9 20 PM a reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 booster
completed a record-breaking 14th space mission Sunday a test bed satellite for AST space Mobile
satellite-based Cellular Broadband Network and 34 starlink internet spacecraft were both
deployed into two different orbits during this Mission which was hailed as one of the spacex's
most complex launches to date what's special to this launch well let's find out together hello
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engine Burns were performed by the Rockets Upper stage on Saturday night four Burns to deploy the
34 starlink payloads and AST space Mobile's blue Walker 3 satellite into two separate orbits and
one burn to bring the Rockets Upper stage back down to earth for ADC destructive re-entry the
Falcon 9's upper stages five engine firings broke the previous record by one and set a new record
for a SpaceX Mission the Falcon 9 Rocket's first stage became spacex's Fleet leader after it took
off on Saturday night the SpaceX rocket family's first stage known as b-1058 has a long history
it made its debut on May 30th 2020 when SpaceX launched its first astronaut Mission aboard a
crew Dragon spacecraft in the event of the crew launched in 2020 the booster made a landing on a
drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean since then it has launched a resupply mission to the International
Space Station two transporter small satellite Rideshare missions nine starlink missions and
carried a South Korean military satellite into orbit the first of two Falcon 9 launches SpaceX
is getting ready to fly in quick succession was on Saturday night from pad 39a a few miles south
of Kennedy on space launch complex 40 at Cape Canaveral space force station a second Falcon 9
rocket was ready to launch 54 starlink satellites into orbit over the course of the following
several days two of spacex's Rocket laning platforms have been launched into the Atlantic
ocean from Port Canaveral one for Saturday night's launch and the other for the subsequent starlink
Mission from pad 40. in the midst of ongoing construction to prepare the coastal launch complex
as a future base for spacex's enormous reusable super heavy booster and Starship rocket SpaceX
rolled the Falcon 9 to pan 39a on Friday less than 12 hours before raising the other Falcon 9 upright
on pant 40 ground Crews raised the 229-foot tall or 70 meter Falcon 9 vertical early on Saturday on
pad 39a Abel avayan chairman and CEO of AST space mobile stated that the launch of blue Walker 3
was the result of years of work by the company's Engineers to test linking the phone in your pocket
without any changes to the phone directly with one of their satellites in orbit with the help
of this groundbreaking technology we can fulfill our mission to close the connectivity gaps between
more more than 5 billion mobile subscribers are currently experiencing as they move in and out
of coverage and to connect the roughly 50 percent of the world's population that is still offline
to Cellular Broadband between the digital Haves and Have Nots we want to narrow the gap
inside the Falcon 9's payload shroud blue Walker 3 was placed in the upper position and launched
into orbit the blue Walker 3 satellite weighing around 3 300 pounds or about 1.5 metric tons
was launched by the Falcon 9's upper stage at a height of about 318 miles after two engine Burns
blue Walker 3 was separated roughly 50 minutes after takeoff at roughly t plus two hours and
four minutes the Falcon 9 upper stage used two additional engine fires to guide the rocket into
a slightly lower orbit for the deployment of 34 starlink satellites the launch scheduled for
Saturday night according to spacex's founder and CEO Elon Musk will be one of our most challenging
missions the Falcon 9 upper stage finish its deorbit burn a short while later marking the
fifth firing of the missions rocket on Saturday night SpaceX then confirmed the separation of the
starlink satellites the blue Walker 3 satellite was in contact with AST space Mobile's ground
controllers as of late Saturday the company said the chief strategy officer of AST space
mobile Scott Wisniewski asserted that blue Walker 3 would be the biggest commercially deployed
communications array ever in low earth orbit at 693 square feet are used to test our direct to
Cell Phone Cellular Broadband infrastructure according to Wisniewski we are a corporation
established on the aim to build cellular Broadband directly from space we started working on it in
2017 and we'll be conducting testing on that in the upcoming months this satellite's made a
link directly with cell phones conventional cell phones and unmodified Mobile phones on the ground
the command for the spacecraft to unfold its antenna array will be sent by ground controllers
at some point in the first two months following the launch supposing blue Walker 3 is performing
as expected according to Wisniewski the antenna is made up of 148 separate parts each with its
own antenna elements that are joined together by mechanical hinges in an interview a space flight
now Wisniewski stated that the unfolding process itself is quite basic in essence the satellite has
been compressed into a cube that uses stored in or G in the hinges that have packed it together
to expand up to two Dimensions an array of solar and antenna elements pointing up toward the Sun
and down toward the Earth then appears according to Wisniewski the secret to any deployment is to
keep things as straightforward as uncomplicated as you can amazing things were accomplished by
the James Webb Telescope we do however believe that this level of complexity encourages mistakes
if at all possible you avoid it in the future there will be a ton cooler way to handle this
as we've had a lot more complicated designs over the years however the optimum de-risking strategy
was to use only straightforward mechanical hinges according to his new ski the unfolding
is going to be a crucial milestone for us we'll perform calibration after that and start making
calls after that ASD space mobile is supported by Venture Capital funds as well as investments from
Vodafone American Tower a provider of cell towers and rakitin a Japanese mobile Telecom provider
to evaluate the compatibility of the space-based cell network with current cell phones the business
has agreements with Samsung Nokia and mobile network operators like Vodafone at T and orange
according to Wisniewski basically we've removed the top off the cell tower and that capability
is now on our satellite ASD space Mobile's blue Walker 3 will use more than 10 mobile network
operators on six continents to show off its 4G and 5G technology our goal according to Wisniewski is
to adjust their Network so that we can communicate with them not only AST space mobile but other
companies are working on satellite-based cell phone networking technology the next generation
of starlink satellites which are scheduled to start being launched in late 2023 will be used
by SpaceX and T-Mobile to offer direct to cell phone connectivity according to an announcement
made last month for ASD space mobile satellite to connect with the relatively weak and small
antennas on consumer mobile phones big antennas are needed the starlink V2 satellites will be
considerably bigger than the starlink system as it is now the phone is fairly poor in terms
of antenna strength and battery power so having a larger satellite is crucial to connecting to
it without issue according to Wisniewski we're going to be installing the biggest commercially
available communications array in low earth orbit so it's essential to have sufficient bandwidth and
throughput to the phone in addition to being able to connect to a phone without any problems since
we're the only ones with Broadband 4G and 5G we use a similar approach about 85 million dollars
has been spent by AST space Mobile on the blue Walker 3 project the business attends to launch
the first five operational satellites in late 2023 maybe using a different SpaceX Falcon 9
rocket if everything goes according to planned 168 satellites will eventually be launched by
AST space mobile astronomers complained about the starlink spacecraft reflecting more sunlight than
anticipated which led SpaceX to attempt to end visors and less reflective coatings on their
Broadband satellites the Broadband constellations being planned by other businesses are similar
the first test bed for a potential Boeing constellation of Internet satellites launched
earlier this month and one web has already launched 428 internet satellites for its
constellation of 648 spacecraft Amazon also plans to launch the first of its planned Fleet of 3236
Kuiper internet satellites in the coming months with that being said that ends today's episode we
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