As SpaceX continued its steady march of Starlink internet satellite launches, the company reached a new milestone with the seventh flight of Starlink on Wednesday: Falcon 9 took the mantle of “most flown currently operational U.S. rocket” from Atlas V.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is actively making moves on the ground, securing FCC permits for Starlink ground terminals/stations across the United States.
The seventh flight of Starlink satellites launched Wednesday, 22 April at 15:30 EDT (19:30 UTC) from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center.
The U.S.’s most flown, active rocket:
This flight marked a major point in U.S. launch operations, as Falcon 9 reached 84 flights to its name and officially took the mantle from Atlas V as the most flown, currently operational U.S. rocket.
Atlas V began flying on 21 August 2002 and has 83 flights to its name after 18 years — for an annual rate of 4.6 launches.
Falcon 9 began flying on 4 June 2010 and will reach 84 flights in just under 10 years with a flight rate of 8.4 launches per year.
Falcon 9 in the transsonic regime during the sixth Starlink launch on 18 March 2020. (Credit: SpaceX)
The changing of the guard — so to speak — is made all the more impressive by the fact that in its first three years, Falcon 9 only flew five times.
By June 2015, the rocket had 19 flights to its name — 14 flights in two years compared to 5 flights in the first three years.
In the second five years of operation, Falcon 9 amassed an impressive 65 flights (counting the seventh flight of Starlink on Wednesday) — an average of 13 missions a year.
At this point, given Falcon 9’s launch rate, it is highly unlikely Atlas V will recapture its top spot.
Atlas V has one mission in May and a following mission in July.
In that same time period, SpaceX has at least five missions planned (the 8th, 9th, and 10th flights of Starlink in May, June, and July; the Demo-2 crew flight to the International Space Station in May; and the GPS-III mission in June).
Moreover, the impressive rise of Falcon 9 occurred while SpaceX actively redesigned — in some cases, radically — the rocket through numerous changes, culminating more or less in the Block 5 design flying today.
Meanwhile, the company implemented reusability with the Falcon 9 to a scale that sent U.S. and global competitors scrambling to design lower-cost and/or reusable rocket systems.
And all this while Falcon Heavy was developed, test flown, and entered operation.
Meanwhile, Starship has simultaneously been put through multiple design iterations, builds, and tests.
Furthermore, it all happened while SpaceX worked with NASA to design, develop, build, and return domestic human launch capability to the United States — a goal they stand ready to achieve No Earlier Than 27 May.
With the seventh flight of Starlink on Wednesday, SpaceX made its 92nd orbital launch attempt.
At this rate, the company will likely achieve its 100th orbital launch attempt in the summer or autumn months this year.
Given its flight rate, Falcon 9 itself will likely reach 100 launches to its credit at some point within its 10th year of operation (4 June 2020 – 3 June 2021). If SpaceX can maintain a launch cadence of two Falcon 9s each month in May through December, they could end 2020 with the 100th Falcon 9 mission.
Starlink: Where are they now?
With the seventh flight of Starlink Wednesday, 422 Starlink satellites will have been launched across eight missions – seven dedicated Starlink flights and one ride-share.
Tintin A and B:
The first two Starlink satellites, which admittedly were prototypes and ended up looking nothing like the operational units, were launched on a rideshare mission with the Paz satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in February 2018.
Tintin A and B were test satellites that communicated with ground stations, performed military testing, and proved out/showed where improvements were needed for the actual constellation.
The first two Starlinks, launched in Feb. 2018, on their deployment canister. (Credit: SpaceX)
Both Tintins recently began lowering their orbits, leading to speculation they may be on their way to de-orbiting.
Tintin A and B were not meant to be part of the actual constellation.
First flight of Starlink – testing in May 2019:
Officially known as the first flight of Starlink, this mission saw 60 test satellites launched into orbit from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, with 30 satellites holding one design and the other 30 holding a different design.
Of these 60 satellites, one of them has deorbited, another is lowering its orbit and appears on its way to deorbiting, and another dozen or so have been lowered below their initial deployment orbit.
Moreover, 38 of those original satellites are in a group at 530 km altitude.
It is unclear if SpaceX is still testing them or if they intend some from this batch to be part of the initial operational constellation.
The tension rods — which hold the Starlinks in place for launch — from this mission are still in orbit, circling Earth at an altitude of 430-440 km.
Second – sixth flights of Starlink:
Informally dubbed the “operational” missions, the second through sixth flights launched between November 2019 and March 2020.
As of 21 April 2020, two of these satellites have been deorbited.
Successful deployment of 60 Starlink satellites confirmed! pic.twitter.com/bKBtI5UZEB
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) February 17, 2020
The tension rods from these missions are — in general – reentering within a couple months due to the deployment orbit being lower than the first flight.
The elliptical deployment orbit used for the fifth and sixth Starlink launches in February and March 2020 — where the satellites separated about 14 minutes after launch — has lowered tension rod deorbit time to around one month.
However, after deployment, it takes Starlink ground controllers time to get the satellites checked out and boosted up to their operational orbits.
After a group of 60 satellites is launched, they are first raised to a temporary orbit of approximately 350 km altitude where they are checked out.
After that, the satellites drift to their correct orbital planes largely from this intermediate orbit, with 20 satellites going to each of three planes.
This process has been taking about 4-5 months to accomplish after launch.
| Mission | Launch date | Where are they now? |
| Tintin A & B | 22 February 2018 | – On orbit;
– Altitude being lowered |
| First | 23 May 2019 | – 1 deorbited;
– 1 lowering altitude – 38 in 530 km orbit – Approx. 12 in lowering orbit – Approx. 8 in their intermediate checkout orbit |
| Second | 11 November 2019 | – All 60 in their ~550 km operational orbit and plane |
| Third | 6 January 2020 | – 1 deorbited
– Two-thirds in their ~550 km operational orbit and plane – One-third still plane changing |
| Fourth | 29 January 2020 | – 20 in their ~550 km operational orbit and plane
– 20 actively raising to their ~550 km operational orbit in correct plane – 20 still plane changing |
| Fifth | 17 February 2020 | – 1 deorbited
– One-third in their ~550 km operational orbit in correct plane – One-third just starting to raise to their ~550 km operational orbit in correct plane – One-third still plane changing |
| Sixth | 18 March 2020 | – 20 starting to raise to their ~550 km operational orbit in correct plane
– 40 actively plane changing |
Total Starlinks launched (as of 21 April 2020): 362
Total Starlinks in orbit (as of 21 April 2020): 359
Starlink ground stations:
Meanwhile, SpaceX has been preparing for an extensive network of ground stations, or gateways, around the U.S. for Starlink internet service.
The gateways provide the connection between the Starlink satellites and the internet.
In the last month, SpaceX has submitted FCC (Federal Communications Commission) filings for 13 more Starlink Ka-band gateway sites.
The new facilities are in: California; Connecticut, Florida (2, including at CCAFS); Missouri; Nebraska; Nevada; New York; Oregon; Tennessee; Texas (two, at the SpaceX facilities in McGregor and Boca Chica); and Utah.These join the seven previous filings for locations in California, Maine, Montana, Pennsylvania, Washington (2), and Wisconsin.
There will now be gateways co-located with most of SpaceX’s facilities.
There was also another potential gateway location at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station mentioned in planning documents seen last week, at a location separate from that shown in the FCC documentation.
Seventh flight of Starlink satellites:
As has been standard with most Starlink missions, this seventh voyage of 60 satellites into Earth orbit used a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster.
In particular, this mission used B1051.4, a booster that previously supported the Demo-1 uncrewed test flight of Crew Dragon to the International Space Station in March 2019, the Canadian RADARSAT Constellation mission in June 2019, and the fourth Starlink mission on 29 January 2020.
The payload fairings for this mission were also reused from a previous flight, that of AMOS-17 in August 2019.
During that fairing recovery effort, half of the fairing was caught by Ms. Tree while the other half splashed harmlessly down into the Atlantic Ocean where it was fished out for recovery.
Rocket fairing falls from space & is caught by Ms Tree boat pic.twitter.com/nJv0Ry1iKk
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2019
Both fairing catcher ships, Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief, were stationed approximately 730 km northeast of the launch site about 300 km off the coast of North Carolina. However, due to poor sea states, the recovery of the fairings will be from the water and not in the nets.
The Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS) Of Course I Still Love You was positioned about 630 km northeast of the launch site (about 200 km off the coast of South Carolina) where the Falcon 9 first stage landed for recovery and future reuse.
This marked the 51st recovery of a Falcon 9 rocket since the first successful recovery in December 2015.