SpaceX launches Falcon 9 with first broadband internet satellites

Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a customer payload plus its own broadband demonstration satellites in the company’s first mission since millions tuned in earlier this month for its Falcon Heavy debut.
The Thursday launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s central Coast carried a radar-imaging satellite for Spain’s Hisdesat Servicios Estrategicos SA. The PAZ satellite will orbit the planet 15 times a day and collect information - including ship tracking and weather data - for government and commercial customers.
The rocket also carried a pair of SpaceX’s own broadband satellites as a secondary payload.

Microsat-2a and -2b are the first prototypes for the company’s planned constellation of satellites - dubbed Starlink - intended to offer broadband internet around the world.
“If successful, Starlink constellation will serve least served,” Musk said in a Tweet Wednesday. SpaceX’s fourth launch in what is expected to be a record year took off from the California pad at around 6:17 a.m. local time. SpaceX is targeting roughly 30 total launches this year, including flying its new Falcon Heavy rocket again in June.

SpaceX launches Air Force's super-secret mini-shuttle

SpaceX launched the Air Force's super-secret space shuttle on Thursday,  a technology tester capable of spending years in orbit.

The unmanned Falcon rocket blasted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, as schools and businesses boarded up for Hurricane Irma.

It's the fifth flight for one of these crewless mini- shuttles, known as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle.

The two Air Force space planes have already logged a combined 5 years in orbit. But officials won't say what the spacecraft are doing up there. The last mission lasted almost two years and ended with a May touchdown at the runway formerly used by NASA's space shuttles. The first one launched in 2010.

As has become customary, SpaceX landed its leftover booster back at Cape Canaveral for eventual reuse.

This was the first time SpaceX has provided a lift for the experimental mini-shuttle. The previous missions relied on United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rockets. Air Force officials said they want to use a variety of rockets for the X-37B programme, to launch quickly if warranted.

The Boeing-built mini-shuttle is 29 feet long, with a 14 -foot wingspan. By comparison, NASA's retired space shuttles were 122 feet long, with a 78-foot wingspan.

SpaceX stopped providing details about the X-37B's climb to orbit, a few minutes after liftoff at the Air Force's request. The booster's return to SpaceX's landing zone at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, however, was broadcast live.
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