NASA says its milestone crew launch scheduled to take place on Saturday has been delayed by one day due to a couple of factors. The launch will involve SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts to the International Space Station. This is a big moment for both NASA and SpaceX, marking the first time astronauts have been launched for crew rotation from US soil since 2011.
It's been years since NASA announced that it intended to work with private industry to build spacecraft that could put American astronauts into space. SpaceX spent the years after that announcement designing, developing, and testing its rockets and Crew Dragon for carrying astronauts and cargo. NASA and SpaceX are now celebrating the completion of the Human Rating Certification Plan for the SpaceX crew transportation system.
This week the first commercial spacecraft system in history was officially certified by NASA. This certification is a monumental point of reference in the Commercial Crew Program with SpaceX and their SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with Crew Dragon Resilience.
SpaceX has been forced to scrub some of its launches recently due to weather and other issues with equipment. On Thursday, November 5, at 6:24 PM EST, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket placing the GPS III Space Vehicle 04 into orbit. The launch occurred at the Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
SpaceX is gearing up for its historic Crew-1 trip to the ISS to deliver astronauts to the orbiting research station. The Crew Dragon capsule that will be used for the mission has been dubbed "Resilience" and is currently scheduled to launch with astronauts aboard to the ISS later this month. SpaceX delivered the spacecraft to its hangar at Kennedy Space Center earlier this week.
SpaceX has finally received approval from Canadian authorities to offer its Starlink satellite Internet service in the country, a decision that comes amid a recent expansion of the beta program in the US. With this approval in place, SpaceX will be able to offer rural Canadians access to high-speed broadband, something that will slowly expand into other countries, as well.
It's very difficult to launch rockets into space successfully, and only a few companies and governments have been able to do it. It's even more challenging to launch a rocket into space and then recover the first stage for use to lessen the expense of rocket launches. So far, SpaceX has proven very adept at recovering its Falcon 9 first stage rockets regularly to be refitted and re-flown.
SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service is aiming to add "several thousand more" beta participants, with Elon Musk dropping fresh details about plans for the high-tech network. The focus of more than a dozen SpaceX launches, Starlink relies on a growing constellation of satellites orbiting the Earth, with specially-designed terminals on the ground using them to get online.
Elon Musk is known, both in good and in bad ways, for making seemingly outlandish claims about technologies and the future. What sets him apart is that he often does manage to pull it off, as evidenced by SpaceX's results and, now, his Starlink satellite constellation. Controversial right from the get-go, the Internet service that will litter the skies with small satellites has just begun its public beta and, despite having just a fraction of the target satellites, testers are already impressed with the service's promise.
NASA is gearing up to celebrate a huge milestone in the Commercial Crew Program. The space agency is inviting everyone to #LaunchAmerica on Saturday, November 14, 2020. On that day, the SpaceX Crew Dragon will lift off at 7:49 PM EST from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Crew Dragon will carry a full crew of four astronauts to the ISS for a six-month science mission.
SpaceX is expanding up its Starlink satellite internet beta, contacting would-be subscribers to offer them early access to the service at $99 per month. The project aims to blanket increasingly large areas with broadband internet service, delivered from a mesh of satellites that SpaceX has been progressively adding to over the past months.
SpaceX continues on its trail to build up its orbiting Starlink satellite network with the launch on Saturday that placed 60 additional satellites into orbit. With that launch, the size of the Starlink constellation is now 895. Eventually, there will be thousands of satellites in orbit beaming broadband Internet service everywhere in the US and around the world.