- Elon Musk’s space company
SpaceX is gearing up to launch another 60Starlink internet satellites tonight. - The Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 7:52 pm Indian Standard Time (IST).
- Here’s how you watch the SpaceX launch live.
Elon Musk’s space exploration company has already launched 650 satellites, 175 of which went up in August alone.
Musk had previously suggested that the company would launch Starlink satellites every two weeks throughout the year to hit 1,400 by the end of 2020, but the plan is progressing slower than that so far.
The SpaceX workhorse Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to take off from Pad 39A at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 7:52 pm Indian Standard Time (IST).
How to watch the SpaceX launch
Once the rocket takes off, the Starlink satellites will be deployed within around 1 hour and 1 minute. You can catch the action live on YouTube stream embedded below or head on over to the SpaceX official channel.
Sun visors may not be enough to address Starlink's concerns.
In August, SpaceX started launching its satellites equipped with sun visors to make them less bright. The move came after several experts and scientists pointed out that the sheer number of satellites would block out the rest of the space and interfere with astronomical measurements.
An example recently came to light where the train of Starlink satellite was seen photobombing an image of Comet Neowise.
“The visors will probably make the satellites less bright, but it won’t stop them from interfering with astronomy,” astronomer Jonathan McDowell told Business Insider in June.
SpaceX Starlink high-speed internet
SpaceX has already begun private beta testing the internet service earlier this year. According to the company, the Starlink satellite internet can download 100 megabits per second with ‘space lasers’ to transfer data between satellites.
"That means our latency is low enough to play the fastest online video games, and our download speeds are fast enough to stream multiple HD movies at once and still have bandwidth to spare,” said SpaceX senior certification engineer Kate Tice during the announcement.
After launching another 500 or so satellites, the company plans to boot up the system fully.
“For the system to be economically viable, it’s really on the order of 1,000 satellites,” Musk said in 2019. Overall, SpaceX is currently waiting on the government to approve its plan to put a total of 42,000 satellites into orbit around the planet to create its mega constellation.
SEE ALSO:
RBI postpones Monetary Policy meeting as the hunt for three new MPC members continues
SBI warns customers to beware of WhatsApp calls and scam messages
Bank stocks gain as Supreme Court defers verdict on loan moratorium case to October 5