The latest launch of satellites into orbit Starlink carried out by SpaceX broke the space company record for the number of space launches in a year. Flight Falcon 9, which took off Thursday from Cape Canaveral Space Force station in Florida, marked the company’s 27th successful launch. Elon Musk in 2021. Musk now controls over 36% of all active satellites in orbit.
SpaceX beats its space launch record
SpaceX’s Starlink project aims to create a vast network of satellites around the Earth, to broadcast high-speed Internet over the planet’s soil and in places where it would not be possible to have a stable Internet line. So let’s talk about remote or difficult to reach places from the infrastructures and who can only opt for a satellite internet line, precisely.
Today there are more than 1,750 active Starlink satellites in orbit, although SpaceX has submitted documents to create a constellation of 42,000 satellites. A number from which the company still seems a long way off, in fact another five SpaceX launches are planned only by the end of the year, with the next one scheduled for December 9th.
The firm has already faced criticism from the coalition of astronomers Satellites Constellation (SatCon1), who said that this large constellation of satellites could prove to be “extremely impactful” for scientific advances. It is currently unclear whether this issue will ever be seriously addressed and explored.
SpaceX, meanwhile, secured a multi-billion dollar deal with NASA earlier this year, beating Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin. Despite this, Musk warned this week that the private space company faces bankruptcy if its next-generation Starship rocket fails to get regular launches in 2022.