after Scrubtember and Scrubtober severely disrupted SpaceX’s launch plan, Elon Musk’s rocket company is eager to put more Starlink broadband satellites into orbit as soon as possible. The airspace closure indicates that SpaceX plans to launch the next batch of orbiting satellites from Cape Canaveral, Florida as early as Sunday, October 18, and then launch another batch of about 60 satellites from Florida on Wednesday, October 21. satellite.
From the end of August to the beginning of October, several launches by SpaceX and its competitor, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) failed due to weather and technical issues, which led to the increase of #Scrubtember and #Scrubtober tags. Since then, SpaceX tried to complete the Starlink mission, but eventually interrupted this series of activities.
Right now, SpaceX’s mission to launch a new military GPS satellite and ULA to launch a US spy satellite is still stranded, and technical problems are still being resolved.
At the same time, SpaceX seems to be hoping to catch up with the launch of Starlink. To meet FCC authorization requirements, the company needs to send thousands of its Internet-launched “birds” into low-Earth orbit in the next few years. So far, more than 700 satellites have been launched, of which more than 60 of the oldest satellites have been or will soon be out of orbit. All of this means that SpaceX has a long way to go to achieve its ultimate goal of creating a giant constellation with tens of thousands of satellites.
SpaceX still needs to conduct static launch tests before the launch date of these targets, and the launch date may always be delayed. The FAA also announced that possible backup launch dates on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday will be closed. Therefore, if the weather is good, people may see at least one – if not two Starlink launches next week.
