News
SpaceX is launching 60 more satellites into space tonight
And you can watch!
SpaceX will be launching 60 satellites into space tonight to join the Starlink fleet, and they will be visible over the UK again.
The news comes just days after SpaceX and NASA made history after successfully launching two astronauts into space onboard the Falcon 9 rocket, a privately owned space mission.
The launch for the satellites is scheduled for 20:55 EDT on June 3rd (01:55 GMT June 4th).
This will be the eighth batch of Starlink satellites sent to space, bringing the total number in orbit to nearly 500.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre said: “SpaceX is scheduled to launch the 8th mission of the constellation of networked satellites known as Starlink.
“The goal of Starlink is to create a network that will help provide internet services to those who are not yet connected, and to provide reliable and affordable internet across the globe.”
The Starlink satellites, Elon Musk hopes, will bring low-cost internet to remote areas on Earth.
Starlink explained: “With performance that far surpasses that of traditional satellite internet, and a global network unbounded by ground infrastructure limitations, Starlink will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable.”
However, several astronomers have raised concerns that one of the satellites could pass in front of a telescope and obscure an image.
A recent study published by arXiv said: “Depending on their altitude and surface reflectivity, their contribution to the sky brightness is not negligible for professional ground-based observations.
“With the huge amount of about 50,000 new artificial satellites for telecommunications planned to be launched in Medium and Low Earth Orbit, the mean density of artificial objects will be of >1 satellite for square sky degree; this will inevitably harm professional astronomical images.”
Starlink satellites will be visible from the UK a number of times this week:
12:39am, 4th June 2020
4:04am, 4th June 2020
3:06am, 5th June 2020
12:12am, 6th June 2020
2:08am, 6th June 2020
You can watch the live stream of the launch here.