Covering All Things Florida
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 tonight from Pad SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and sent another twenty-three Starlink satellites to orbit. Liftoff occurred at 09:22 PM EDT on a crisp, clear spring evening on the Space Coast.
Note: Originally published by Charles Boyer at Talk of Titusville
Based in the United States, Astranis says they have made a significant breakthrough in delivering satellite internet with Omega, dubbing it the “pound-for-pound the most powerful communications satellite”. Omega is destined for higher geostationary orbits approximately 22,000 miles above the planet. This positioning is notably different from the lower Earth orbits utilized by Starlink satellites, which orbit sixty times closer.
“With Omega, our customers simply get more throughput at lower prices”
Astranis CEO John Gedmark
On a bittersweet day in in the annals of spaceflight, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) said goodbye to one of its most powerful and storied rockets. With an ontime launch at 12:53 PM EDT on April 9, the Delta IV Heavy rocket soared into the skies for its final mission, carrying a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), designated NROL-70.
Sunday night saw an on-time launch for SpaceX’s latest Falcon 9 mission known as Bandwagon-1. The rideshare mission, SpaceX’s 35th of 2024, carried 11 satellites to a mid-inclination orbit (45 degrees) for six different companies. A mid-inclination orbit places satellites over populated areas rather than providing global coverage seen with standard polar orbits.
In the quiet, expansive steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, Expedition 70 to the ISS officially ended. NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya from Belarus, concluded their space mission with a parachute-assisted landing in the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft at 3:17 a.m. EDT on Saturday, April 6 (12:17 p.m. Kazakhstan time).
In a push that could adversely impact private space companies, President Joe Biden is advocating for the inclusion of space launch operations within the scope of U.S. airspace taxes. This proposal, part of the president’s budget released last month, aims to revise the longstanding aviation excise tax framework to incorporate contributions from private space entities like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, as reported by The New York Times.
At an April 3, 2024, news conference, NASA announced its approach for the development, construction, and fielding of one (or potentially more) lunar terrain vehicle (LTV) as one more element of the Artemis Program. As opposed to selecting one company to produce an LTV, three “awardees” were selected to compete in a rather complicated process for the final project award.
One of the most iconic parts of the Apollo missions were videos and photos of astronauts driving around a lunar rover on the moon’s surface. Used for the final three Apollo missions — Apollo 15, 16, and 17 — the 462-pound rovers were built by Boeing and had a top speed of 6 MPH. They were used for mobility and transporting astronauts and equipment, and were also equipped with a color television camera that showed live views to audiences back on Earth of the astronauts driving on the lunar surface. The cameras also provided remote views of the liftoff of the Lunar Module’s ascent module, and provided the only views of humans lifting off of the surface of the moon as they began their return to Earth.
Tuesday was an active day for launch scheduling: United Launch Alliance has announced that they will make their next attempt to launch Delta IV Heavy and NROL-70 on Tuesday April 9th, and later, NASA announced that the Crewed Flight Test of Boeing’s Starliner is now Monday, May 6th.
In a bizarre incident, a piece of space debris from the International Space Station (ISS) plummeted through the roof of a Florida home last month. The unsuspecting homeowner, Alejandro Otero, was fortunate to be away at the time, but his son was inside when the nearly 2-pound object tore through the roof and both floors of their two-story house in Naples, Florida.
Robert D. “Bob” Cabana, a former NASA astronaut, NASA Associate Administrator (the agency’s third highest-ranking executive) and Director of Kennedy Space Center, has joined IBX, a firm that invests in and fosters innovation in space-related companies. Founded by engineer and entrepreneur Kam Ghaffirian, IBX supports companies Ghaffirian helped found: Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines, Quantum Space and X-energy along with other ventures. Cabana will serve as a Senior Advisor with the company.
SpaceX launched two Falcon 9 rockets to orbit Saturday: first, at 5:52 PM EDT Eutelsat 36D from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, then at 9:30 PM, Starlink 6-45 from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station — a three-hour, thirty-minute gap between launches. The mission marked the second of the company’s “doubleheader” launches this year.
