SpaceX

No one country can claim monopoly or sovereignty of the vastness of outer space. They can, however, claim superiority in the technologies that will take equipment and humans there. For the past years, space tech news has mostly revolved around SpaceX and, to a lesser extent, Blue Origin, both US companies. Other countries like China and even Russia aren’t sitting still and now the European Commission is making a move as well. It has just greenlit a three-year project to develop its own reusable rockets.

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SpaceX has been talking up its plans to launch its STP-2 mission; this is the first mission to launch using side boosters that had flown previously. The rocket launched in the early morning hours of Tuesday lifting off at 2:30 am ET from a launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The launch of STP-2 has been hailed at its most challenging mission yet as the massive Falcon 9 Heavy rocket was pushing 24 satellites into orbit with different orbits required for some satellites.

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Monday night will be the night that the next SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launch goes off, assuming the weather cooperates. The launch is set to happen at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the launch is pushing a bunch of satellites into orbit if all goes well.

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SpaceX aced another Falcon 9 launch and a successful landing of its first stage rockets this morning, again demonstrating its reusable spacecraft technology despite heavy fog making conditions less than easy. The sixth Falcon 9 mission to operate in 2019 alone, the launch was to take three RADARSAT satellites into orbit. However it's arguably what happened down on the ground which is more impressive.

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The International Astronomical Union (IAU) released a statement this week showing concern for the coming waves of private organization launches of satellite constellations. A satellite constellation is a group of satellites all working together in a carefully organized grid. It's like an extra sphere of stuff around our earth, in low-earth orbit, and it could get messy.

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Starlink may only have a fraction of its planned internet satellites in orbit so far, but questions are already being raised as to how SpaceX's globe-blanketing connectivity system will avoid interfering with astronomy and stargazing. The company launched its first sixty Starlink satellites last week, part of a network of coverage that Elon Musk's project expects to bring connectivity to users all over the world.

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SpaceX was finally able to launch the first 60 Starlink satellites that will eventually provide global internet coverage. The launch had been scrubbed in the past because the satellites needed a software update. Eventually, there will be 12,000 of the satellites in orbit to blanket the Earth with internet connectivity. That is assuming that all goes to plan for SpaceX.

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We, and especially SpaceX, probably imagine rocket launches that take off any time just like planes. Reality, however, is that such launches are at the mercy of the weather even more than planes are. That's pretty much the reason why SpaceX postponed the launch of its ambitious satellites twice. They say third time's a charm and, finally, 60 satellites from Elon Musk's Starlink vision are now on their way to float around the earth and bring the Internet connection of the future.

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SpaceX has its Falcon 9 sitting on the launch pad waiting for the go to launch. Earlier this week we saw an image of the Falcon 9 packed with the first 60 of SpaceX's Starlink satellites. That launch was delayed due to wind shear from May 15th to May 16th.

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The Planetary Society has announced that its next-generation of light-propelled satellites will launch next month. LightSail 2 will head into orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket scheduled for liftoff on June 22 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once the LightSail 2 spacecraft is in orbit, it will deploy a solar sail that is the size of a boxing ring meant to give the satellite propulsion using solar photons.

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Economic space travel and Mars colonization aren't the only ambitions Elon Musk has for SpaceX. Launching a constellation of Internet-bearing satellites is another and it seems that the company is ready to get that journey started. Not that it has much time left if it wants to stay in the FCC's good graces. The CEO shared on Twitter a view of 60 such Starlink satellites loaded snugly inside a Falcon 9 nosecone, ready for its test launch on Wednesday.

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SpaceX has had a bit of up and down when it comes to testing of its Crew Dragon capsule that may one-day ferry Americans into space again. Not long ago the Crew Dragon test capsule was lost in an explosion during testing. NASA and SpaceX confirmed this week that last month another test of the capsule didn't go as planned.

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