By Chathushka Perera
New York, USA (CWBN)_ Elon Musk’s ambitious space initiative, SpaceX, carried out the successful launch of 60 of its Starlink satellites into lower orbit, yesterday (18th October), bringing the total well over 800. The Falcon 9 rocket carrying the satellites took off from the Kennedy Space Station at 8:25am (local time).
The booster rocket used in the flight has seen up to six launches and is the second Falcon 9 to do so, thanks to SpaceX’s reusable rocket tech development and offshore drone vessels used for landing.
Starlink, a division under SpaceX, intends to develop a low-latency, high-speed, global broadband network using mass-manufactured, small scale satellites. Currently Starlink has been authorised by the International Telecommunication Union to launch up to 12,000 satellites, however, the number would increase by 30,000 following a submission made by Starlink in October last year.
According to SpaceX President and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, the overall costs incurred by the company is projected to “10 billion or more”. Morgan Stanley Research estimates the cost of launching a single Falcon 9 rocket, capable of carrying 60 satellites, at 50 million USD. The cost of a satellite on the other hand has been estimated at about 1 million USD.
The company has also indicated a requirement for additional volunteers in the coming days for its beta-testing program currently taking place in Canda and US. Moreover, apart from the primary intentions ascribed to the program by the Musk and his company, some of the satellites would be diverted into other purposes such as military use, scientific research, space exploration, etc.
