A Falcon 9 rocket stands on pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, ready for liftoff early Wednesday. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now
SpaceX and OneWeb — space industry rivals and owners of two of the largest fleets of commercial satellites — are set to add more spacecraft to their internet networks Wednesday with launches from Cape Canaveral and Russia.
A Falcon 9 rocket is standing on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for liftoff at 4:28 a.m. EDT (0828 GMT) Wednesday with the next batch of 60 Starlink satellites, bringing the total number of Starlink spacecraft launched to date to 1,385.
Meanwhile, halfway around the world, a Russian Soyuz-2.1b rocket is standing on its launch pad at Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East to place 36 more OneWeb internet satellite into orbit. Liftoff of the Soyuz rocket is scheduled for 10:47 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0247 GMT; 11:47 a.m. Vostochny time Thursday), and with this mission, OneWeb will have 146 satellites in orbit.
Both companies have a Florida connection. SpaceX has launched all of its Starlink satellites from Florida’s Space Coast, and OneWeb builds its spacecraft in a factory just outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center.
The Falcon 9 launch set for the predawn hours Wednesday will be SpaceX’s ninth mission from Florida this year, and the seventh dedicated to the Starlink network this year. It will be the 23rd dedicated Starlink launch since May 2019.
For OneWeb, the launch Wednesday will be the fifth dedicated Soyuz flight for the OneWeb constellation, and the first of the year.
SpaceX and OneWeb are competitors in the market to provide broadband internet services from space. Other companies, such as Amazon and Telesat, are developing their own satellite internet constellations, but neither has started deploying operational spacecraft. So far, SpaceX is closest to entering commercial service, followed by OneWeb.
The commercial ventures are designed to beam internet signals to underserved communities, commercial and military ships and aircraft, and other remote customers.
SpaceX’s early focus has been on the consumer broadband market, but the U.S. military has tested out Starlink services. OneWeb’s has emphasized selling services to governments and companies.
Using its own fleet of reusable Falcon 9 boosters, SpaceX has jumped far ahead of OneWeb in launching satellites. But SpaceX’s Starlink network, which flies closer to Earth, requires more satellites to provide global service than OneWeb’s fleet.
Sixty Starlink satellites prepare for deployment from a Falcon 9 rocket upper stage during a launch earlier this month. Credit: SpaceX
The Starlink network could eventually number more than 10,000 satellites, but the first tranche of Starlinks will have 1,584 satellites orbiting 341 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth on paths tilted 53 degrees to the equator.
After heading northeast from Cape Canaveral, the Falcon 9 mission early Wednesday will deliver the next 60 flat-panel Starlink satellites, each with a mass of about a quarter-ton, into an orbit about 168 miles (271 kilometers) above Earth.
The Falcon 9’s first stage will aim for a vertical landing on SpaceX’s drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” positioned around 400 miles (630 kilometers) northeast of Cape Canaveral. The booster is designated B1060 in SpaceX’s inventory, and has logged five missions to date.
Separation of the 60 satellites is scheduled about 64 minutes after liftoff, and the spacecraft will unfurl solar panels and activate their krypton ion propulsion systems to begin checkouts and orbit-raising to reach the operational constellation at an altitude of 341 miles.
SpaceX builds its Starlink satellites in Redmond, Washington.
SpaceX has approval from the Federal Communications Commission for around 12,000 Starlink satellites at a range of altitudes and inclinations, all within a few hundred miles of the planet. The low altitude enables the satellites to deliver high-speed, low-latency connectivity to customers, and helps ensure the spacecraft naturally re-enter the atmosphere faster than if they flew farther from Earth.
Starlink is already providing interim beta service across high latitude regions, such as the northern United States, Canada, and England. More Starlink launches this year will enable an expanded coverage area.
SpaceX announced earlier this month that the Starlink beta service will soon begin reaching customers in Germany, New Zealand, and in other regions of the United Kingdom, including Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and northern England. Those areas could receive beta service in the “coming weeks,” SpaceX said.
SpaceX is accepting pre-orders from would-be Starlink consumers, who can pay $99 to reserve their place in line to get Starlink service when it becomes available in their area. For people in the southern United States and other lower-latitude regions, that should come by late 2021, SpaceX says.
Once confirmed, customers will pay $499 for a Starlink antenna and modem, plus $50 in shipping and handling, SpaceX says. A subscription will run $99 per month.
A Soyuz rocket stands on its launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia for launch with 36 more OneWeb satellites. Credit: Roscosmos
The launch for OneWeb late Wednesday (U.S. time) will be the company’s second mission since emerging from bankruptcy proceedings last year.
The London-based company plans to deploy an initial constellation of approximately 650 satellites using 19 Soyuz rockets. OneWeb purchased the Soyuz launches from Arianespace, which oversees Soyuz flights from the Guiana Space Center. Through its subsidiary Starsem, Arianespace also manages commercial Soyuz launch services from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and from Vostochny.
This mission will be the seventh launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome since Russia’s newest spaceport entered service in 2016. The cosmodrome is located in Amur Oblast in Russia’s Far East near the Chinese border.
OneWeb’s satellites are built by a joint venture between OneWeb and Airbus. The factory operated by the venture, named OneWeb Satellites, is located at Exploration Park near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Soyuz-2.1b launcher carrying the next 36 OneWeb satellites will fly north from Vostochny, and drop its liquid-fueled first stage boosters around two minutes into the mission. The rocket’s core stage — also known as its second stage — will fire around five minutes before giving way to the third stage.
At T+plus 9 minutes, 22 seconds, the third stage will release a Russian-built Fregat upper stage to perform the final maneuvers to place the OneWeb satellites into a polar orbit around 279 miles (450 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination of 87.4 degrees.
Thirty-six OneWeb satellites are prepared for launch from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia. Credit: OneWeb
The OneWeb spacecraft will separate in groups of four from a dispenser structure made by RUAG Space in Sweden over a two-and-a-half hour period, with the final satellites due to deploy at 2:38 a.m. EDT (0638 GMT).
The mass-produced OneWeb satellites each weigh about 325 pounds (147.5 kilograms), featuring xenon-fed ion thrusters, Ku-band and Ka-band antennas to link with customers and ground stations, and deployable solar array wings. The OneWeb satellites will use their ion thrusters to raise altitude to 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) over the next few months, where controllers will ready the spacecraft for service.
With more launches planned this year and next year, OneWeb says it could start providing commercial internet services to some regions in late 2021.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
