This Saturday, July 13 SpaceX will be launching new satellites for their Starlink constellation along with helping other organizations. Falcon-9 rocket will send 3 satellites for a private organization named Planet, along with 58 of their own satellites. By the time regular satellite launch program begins for other countries Planet will become the first to tag along with SpaceX’s small rideshare program. You can watch the launch live here, the launch is scheduled on Saturday, June 13 at 5:21 AM EDT. the webcast could begin any time before that window. You will be notified tomorrow.
The upcoming launch will be SpaceX’s first service of their small rideshare program. The 3 Planet satellites will add to the organization’s SkySat constellation in a lower orbit. However, their constellation has almost 15 spacecraft which is almost the size of a washing machine. They capture a high-quality image of our planet. Planet wants to complete the fleet by adding 6 more satellites. But 3 of these will go in this launch while the rest will go in the upcoming launch of July.
The booster supporting this mission previously launched Dragon’s 19th and 20th resupply missions to the @space_station pic.twitter.com/D0O5vMvF0G
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 11, 2020
SpaceX Starlink constellation: SmallSat Rideshare Program
This is not the first time Planet is using SpaceX’s Falcon-9 two launch satellites. The company previously sent 7 satellites including 2 SkySats in December 2018. However, this will be the first time someone is using the SmallSat Rideshare Program. The Program allows anyone to send payloads to outer space at any and all levels of orbit for a fixed price.
After the success of the recent historic “Launch America“ event with the help of NASA, SpaceX is more than confident to expand their private services. The private space organization will soon be launching a Starship rocket to the moon and become the first-ever private organization to do so.
The new addition of satellites to the Starlink constellation will help strengthen the already good internet connectivity. Let us know what you think of it in the comments section below! Also do not forget to follow us on our Telegram Channel for daily updates.
Suryapratim Ray is an engineer, author, robotics hobbyist, and an active Quoran. Being a technical blogger, he covers the good, bad, and ugly of science on a regular basis at Sciencenews18. In addition to his passion for writing, he’s equally keen on learning classical music.