An Indian rocket is scheduled to launch the record-breaking BlueBird 6 smartphone satellite tv for pc tonight (Dec. 23), and you’ll watch the motion reside.
AST SpaceMobile is constructing a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) that beam broadband service straight to straightforward smartphones on the bottom.
The corporate has launched 5 operational satellites thus far, all of them aboard a single SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in September 2024. These spacecraft, BlueBirds 1 by means of 5, characteristic 693-square-foot (64.4 sq. meters) communication arrays — the biggest ever unfurled in LEO.
BlueBird 6 will break that file, and by a wholesome margin. It is the primary of AST SpaceMobile’s next-generation BlueBirds, whose arrays cowl practically 2,400 sq. toes (223 sq. meters) apiece.
Tonight’s liftoff would be the ninth general for the three-stage, 143-foot-tall (43.5 m) LVM3, which is India’s strongest rocket. It debuted in December 2014 and has a 100% success charge thus far.
BlueBird 6, which ideas the scales at about 13,450 kilos (6,100 kilograms), would be the heaviest payload that the LVM3 has ever hauled to LEO, in line with the Indian House Analysis Organisation.
