SpaceX returns its rocket to Earth after launching 51 small satellites.

 Several small satellites were launched by SpaceX early on Saturday (April 15) morning, and the rocket that returned to Earth was then safely landed.

 

The Transporter-7 rideshare mission was launched at 2:48 a.m. EDT on Saturday (0648 GMT; 11:48 p.m. on April 14 California time) by a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 51 satellites as its payload.

 

About 7 minutes and 45 seconds after launch, the first stage of the Falcon 9 successfully executed a vertical touchdown at Vandenberg, returning to Earth as intended. According to a SpaceX mission description, it was the booster's tenth launch and landing overall.

The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket comes in for a landing at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on April 15, 2023 shortly after launching the Transporter-7 rideshare mission. (Image credit: SpaceX)

The upper stage of the rocket carried the 51 satellites to orbit in the meantime. Around an hour after liftoff, the payloads are supposed to be dispersed over a roughly 95-minute period.

 

A variety of payloads, including "cubesats, microsats, hosted payloads, and orbital transfer vehicles carrying spacecraft to be deployed at a later time," were carried by the rocket that lifted off on Saturday.

 

Numerous clients will operate the spacecraft. The Imece Earth-observation satellite, for instance, is the primary payload and was donated by the Turkish government.

 

Three more are owned by the Canadian business GHGSat, which monitors greenhouse gas emissions from orbit. In addition, AstroForge, a California-based business that seeks to mine asteroids, will run a satellite dubbed Brokkr-1.

 

In a blog post from January, AstroForge wrote, "We will demonstrate our refinery capabilities on this journey with the purpose of verifying our technology and executing extractions in zero gravity." The refinery payload will vaporise and sort the asteroid-like material that the spacecraft will launch pre-loaded with into its component parts.

Transporter-7, as its name suggests, is SpaceX's seventh ride-sharing mission for tiny satellites. On January 3, the most current one, Transporter-6, took off atop a Falcon 9.

 

114 satellites were launched by Transporter-6, a significant number but not a record. The record is held by SpaceX's Transporter-1, which in January 2021 launched an astounding 143 spacecraft.

 

The launch on Saturday was SpaceX's 24th of 2023 thus far. All but one of these have been carried out by Falcon 9s; the lone exception was USSF-67, a covert mission for the U.S. Space Force launched on January 15 by SpaceX's potent Falcon Heavy rocket.

In the upcoming weeks and months, we should witness a lot more spaceflight activity from the corporation. Elon Musk, the creator and CEO of SpaceX, predicted that his organisation may launch up to 100 orbital missions in 2023.

 

And SpaceX is currently preparing for Starship, its next-generation spaceflight system, to make its first-ever orbital test flight. Monday, April 17, is the scheduled launch date for that historic mission.

SpaceX said on Tuesday (April 11) that it was delaying the launch attempt by two days to give extra time for pre-launch inspections and to give the weather a chance to improve. Transporter-7 was originally slated to lift off early on Wednesday morning (April 12). With only approximately 30 seconds left on the countdown clock, the business attempted to launch early on Friday morning (April 14) but aborted the endeavour owing to severe weather.

Reference: space.com


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