After launching 88 satellites into orbit on SpaceX’s second “ride-share” mission on Tuesday, Elon Musk’s company has now carried a total of 900 things into orbit.
A reused Falcon 9 rocket delivered the 88 satellites as part of the “Transporter-2” mission. This included the first five for a new Pentagon agency and dozens more for various firms, governments, and schools.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched at 3:31 p.m. ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, marking the company’s 20th launch this year and the rocket’s eighth flight for the rocket’s first stage booster.
Falcon 9 boosters usually land on sea-faring drone ships. But the Booster returned to Earth about 10 minutes later at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1. It is a pad of concrete that hasn’t been used for rocket landings since December.
Falcon 9 boosters generally land on sea-faring drone ships, and the booster returned to Earth about 10 minutes later at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1, a concrete pad that hasn’t been used for rocket landings since December.
Meanwhile, Falcon 9’s second-stage booster launched the carpool of 88 satellites into a sun-synchronous, pole-to-pole Earth orbit.
Thirty-six small satellites were installed alongside other satellites ordered by SpaceX. Those were on a new payload adapter built by Spaceflight, a company that rents space for small satellites on rockets.
Earlier on Tuesday, SpaceX attempted to launch Transporter-2 but was forced to abort the countdown 11 seconds before lifting off. A private helicopter entered the area although it had been closed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
“Unfortunately, the launch is called off for today, as an aircraft entered the ‘keep out zone,’ which is unreasonably gigantic,” SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted. “There is simply no way that humanity can become a spacefaring civilization without major regulatory reform. The current regulatory system is broken.”
DePete shared a statement, that ALPA asked for a “National Space Integration Strategy.”
According to the release, “the FAA forecasts a 100 percent increase in U.S. launch activities by 2025. These estimates predict that the FAA will need to build on — and extend — a pattern of collaboration between the aviation and aerospace sectors,” said DePete.
He then called for a national integration strategy that included:
- Establishing launch planning and recovery standards,
- Creating standards to make certain reentry of very large pieces of space debris occurs at a predefined location and time
- Requiring notification of pilots, airlines, and controllers not directly involved in a space launch about risk level changes in the airspace.
“As we consider the promise — but also the challenges — of increased spaceflight, the aviation and aerospace sectors have a proven model to follow to ensure safety,” he added.
