Starlink Group 5-10 prepares for launch, pending weather

Date:
Wed, 29 Mar 2023 16:28:24 +0000

Description:
Falcon 9 B1077-4 is being prepared to launch 56 Starlink v1.5 satellites into low Earth The post Starlink Group 5-10 prepares for launch, pending weather appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

FULL STORY ======================================================================

Falcon 9 B1077-4 is being prepared to launch 56 Starlink v1.5 satellites into low Earth orbit on Wednesday, March 29 at 4:01 PM EDT (20:01 UTC), from
SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The Falcon 9 will be flying on a southeast trajectory, as is usual during winter months to avoid recovery operations in rough seas to the northeast.
The trajectory will take the batch of Starlink satellites to an initial 299
by 339 km orbit inclined 43 degrees, with the deployment of the spacecraft scheduled to occur one hour and five minutes after liftoff.



While the second stage pushes the Starlink batch into orbit, the B1077 first stage will land 660 kilometers downrange on Just Read the Instructions ( JRTI ) in the Caribbean, near the Bahamas. If all goes as planned, this will be
the 182nd successful landing out of 193 attempts, counting drone ship and return to launch site landings.

B1077 has previously flown the Crew-5 , GPS III-SV06 , and Inmarsat I-6 F2 missions, and has also landed on JRTI twice before. The recovery ship Bob is also downrange and is tasked with recovering the fairings from this flight. The fairings, equipped with parachutes for a soft splashdown in the ocean,
are now frequently reused, much like the first stages.

This flight will mark the 20th Falcon 9 launch of 2023, as well as the 21st overall SpaceX launch, with up to 100 launches targeted for this year. To put this into perspective, in 2018 SpaceX launched 21 times in the entire year. This included the first flight of Falcon Heavy, as well as 20 Falcon 9 launches.



However, the 45th Weather Squadron of the US Space Forces Space Launch Delta 45 forecasts only a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather during the launch opportunity. The main concerns are the thick cloud layer rule and liftoff winds, due to a front moving through the state Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning. See Also Starlink Group 5-10 L2 SpaceX Section Click here to Join L2 NSF Store

The weather outlook improves considerably for the backup day of Thursday, March 30, with an 85 percent chance of acceptable weather for launch. The
only concern remaining as per the forecast would be liftoff winds.

The 56 satellites, each massing approximately 307 kg, that will be deployed
on this flight will be moved to an operational circular orbit of 530 kilometers altitude over the coming months. They are part of the second generation constellation of the Starlink service, though these are still v1.5 satellites, not the v2 Mini spacecraft flown on Starlink Group 6-1 in late February 2023.

Though a new generation of Starlink satellites has started flying, it could take some time for the v2 satellites to fly in larger numbers. The first
batch of v2 Mini satellites to fly has had teething problems, and as per Elon Musk some of these initial satellites will be deorbited while others will be further tested before going to an operational orbit.

In addition, the Starship launch vehicle that is planned to fly the full-size v2 satellites is still awaiting an FAA launch license as well as other preparations for its first orbital test flight . Even after Starships maiden flight, data analysis and other work would still be needed before these satellites start flying. Falcon 9 deploys its payload of Starlink satellites. (Credit: Mack Crawford for NSF/L2)

Further launches of the v1.5 satellite platform are still planned, while the next v2 Mini launch is set for no earlier than April.

After this launch, there will have been 4,217 Starlink satellites launched into orbit, with at least 302 satellites no longer in orbit. The first operational Starlink launch took place in November 2019, and since then the service has been increasingly used for low-latency, high-speed broadband access in remote areas, disaster and war zones, and in aviation and marine settings.

Starlink has not been without its issues. Concerns have been raised regarding the brightness of these satellites and how they can impact astronomical observations, as well as the possibility of collisions with other satellites, generating space debris. Starlink currently has over one million active subscribers and an open waitlist for future users.

SpaceX has attempted to address the brightness concerns through various
means, such as a failed dark coating and a more successful sunshade, though that had to be removed on v1.5 satellites due to the sunshade blocking inter-satellite laser links. Other brightness mitigation measures, such as dielectric mirror films, are still in work. The satellites also have an onboard autonomous collision avoidance system.

Up to 4,425 first-generation satellites were authorized for the Starlink constellation by the FCC in 2018. The second-generation (Gen2) constellation will be composed of nearly 30,000 second-generation satellites.

( Lead image: Falcon 9 B1077 at SLC-40 ahead of the Inmarsat I-6 F2 mission
in February 2023. Credit: Stephen Marr for NSF)

The post Starlink Group 5-10 prepares for launch, pending weather appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/03/starlink-group-5-10/


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Science News (1337:1/100)