Starlink on Atlas 5 : A Great Success

 Tags : Latest News   Astronomy   Starlink   Atlas5   ULA

Credit - Google || Image Taken From Flickr.com

First there was Starman, then   Starlink, and now the world has Starliner. The newest addition to SpaceX’s line of rockets, Starliner was successfully launched into space on the Atlas 5 rocket at 9:12 AM EST on June 24th 2018, marking SpaceX’s first launch to outer space since its now-famous Falcon Heavy test flight. The Starliner will be joining its previously-launched counterpart, Starman, as well as other plans that Elon Musk plans to launch into space in the coming months, including SpaceX’s new Big Falcon Rocket.

The Launch

The rocket was launched flawlessly, delivering Starlink into orbit at 10:30 a.m. ET. The launch is particularly important to ULA and NASA; it marks their first contracted launch with a new rocket, meaning Elon Musk’s Space X will no longer be contracted to deliver government payloads to orbit. This also means that NASA can now begin testing out its own satellite-internet business model without having to pay for rocket delivery. And Starlink looks like it's off to a great start!

Where Is SpaceX Going With This?

The new Starlink satellites will offer high-speed internet to Earth. Musk announced that his goal is to eventually have 11,000 operational satellites which would produce 1 terabit per second of data transfer. This could possibly be a direct competitor to fiber optic cable companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner, who currently provide internet in America. Although it's hard to tell what SpaceX's intentions are right now, it is likely that there will be more details coming in soon about how exactly they plan to make money from their space program. Until then, we can only speculate and wait patiently for further developments from Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX. On June 25th, 2018 Elon Musk launched 50 out of 75 planned Starlink satellites into orbit using an upgraded version of ULA’s Atlas V rocket known as Atlas 5. Each satellite weighs around 700 pounds and was built by Space Systems Loral based in Palo Alto California. These 50 new spacecraft join 20 others already in space after being launched back in February 2018 aboard another rocket called Falcon 9 by SpaceX. All together these 80 smallish bitsats (small satellites) are part of a project known as Starlink with plans to launch nearly 12,000 additional satellites by 2024 for global coverage by 2025.

Final Thoughts

Starliner is a major success for Boeing, NASA, ULA and Starlink. With Starliner’s arrival on ULA’s rocket, SpaceX can rest easy knowing that NASA will be getting to space with an American-made vehicle. Now that Boeing has its foot in NASA’s door (and no doubt will continue to do so), Elon Musk’s firm can focus all of its efforts on making humanity a multi-planetary species. It also shows how effectively competition between private companies can create better and cheaper options for space travel. If you ever wanted to see what market forces could accomplish when applied to space exploration, just look at how quickly Elon Musk’s SpaceX developed reusable rockets after it was forced into competition with NASA. Competition is good for everyone! Let’s hope NASA continues to encourage competition as it expands beyond Earth orbit. The entire space industry benefits from having multiple companies developing rockets capable of delivering cargo and people to space. This space race may have begun with NASA against Russia during the Cold War, but now that we are decades past Apollo 11, there should be plenty of room for many winners!