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SpaceX plans to launch the third batch of satellites for Amazon’s Challenge Kuiper broadband megaconstellation early on Wednesday morning (July 16), and you may watch the motion dwell.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 24 Kuiper craft is scheduled to elevate off from Cape Canaveral Area Power Station in Florida on Wednesday, throughout a 27-minute window that opens at 2:18 a.m. EDT (0618 GMT).
Wednesday, by the best way, is the 56th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch. That well-known NASA mission put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin down on the lunar floor on July 20, 1969.
SpaceX will stream the Challenge Kuiper launch dwell through its web site and its X account. Protection will start about quarter-hour earlier than liftoff.
Challenge Kuiper is Amazon’s model of Starlink, the broadband megaconstellation that SpaceX operates in low Earth orbit (LEO). Kuiper will finally encompass greater than 3,200 satellites, which can be lofted on greater than 80 launches over the approaching years. (The Starlink community, which is already up and working, consists of almost 8,000 satellites — and that quantity is rising on a regular basis.)
Wednesday morning’s launch would be the third such mission. The primary two Kuiper liftoffs had been carried out by United Launch Alliance Atlas V rockets in April and June of this yr.
If all goes to plan throughout Wednesday’s mission, which SpaceX calls KF-01, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come again to Earth 8.5 minutes after launch. It can land on the SpaceX droneship “A Shortfall of Gravitas,” which can be stationed within the Atlantic Ocean.
It will likely be the primary launch and touchdown for this explicit booster, in accordance with a SpaceX mission description. That is a rarity, as SpaceX is thought for its rocket reuse; one of many firm’s Falcon 9 boosters has a whopping 29 launches below its belt.
The Falcon 9’s higher stage, in the meantime, will proceed hauling the 24 Challenge Kuiper satellites to LEO. They will be deployed at an altitude of 289 miles (465 kilometers) over a virtually eight-minute span that begins roughly 56 minutes after launch. The Kuiper craft will later increase their orbits to their ultimate altitude of 392 miles (630 km).
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