The high-tech race between SpaceX, Amazon and rivals to create massive constellations of Internet-broadcasting satellites is spurring record-breaking rocket launch activity on the Space Coast.
Why? Global broadband data delivery will become the new, invisible “backbone of our society” in the 21st century — just like underground sewer pipes and undersea telegraph cables during 19th century.
In unprecedented fashion, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and adjacent NASA Kennedy Space Center have conducted 72 orbital launches during 2023. This represents a robust 26% increase from the previous annual record of 57 launches, which was set just last year.
Only three missions were manned, while SpaceX launched 43 satellite missions via the Internet from Starlink.
“You’ll never lose any bets in my life if you say, ‘We need more bandwidth.'” Every time, someone asks, “Why do you need that much bandwidth?” You already have a 1,200-baud modem. Isn’t that enough? “McDowell said.
“There are always ways to fill bandwidth, right? It’s that insatiable demand for ever-increasing amounts of data, latency speeds, upload speeds and download times of all kinds. Everything we do in life is a kind of existence summed up in data,” he said. now”.
According to McDowell’s latest count, SpaceX has launched 5,650 Starlink satellites since February 2018. This total includes launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Of this total, 5,233 Starlink satellites remain in orbit. Starlink serves more than 2.3 million people in more than 70 countries, SpaceX reports.
But another major player has emerged. Amazon’s $120 million broadband satellite processing facility is scheduled for completion in 2025 at KSC’s Launch and Landing Facility. After its successful launch of two prototype satellites in October, Amazon is now manufacturing the satellites and aims to deploy them at scale starting in the first half of 2024, Space Florida reported.
The goal: to create a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit.
Looking ahead, NASA expects a faster pace of nearly 100 launches next year from Brevard County.
“Another fun-filled year awaits at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as the momentum of a busy 2023 carries into the new year,” a NASA press release said.
“Missions to the Moon, more crew and cargo flights to the International Space Station, and numerous development projects across the Spaceport are on the horizon,” the press release said.
SpaceX is ‘leading the show’
Don Platt designed and coded the embedded systems used on the space shuttles as a principal software engineer at Bionetics Corp. At Kennedy Space Center. Now director of the Graduate Center for Spaceports at the Florida Institute of Technology in Titusville, he laughed as he described his thoughts on launches these days.
“From a personal standpoint, I would get so excited I would go outside and make sure I had my binoculars and watch the launch,” Platt recalls.
“And now I’m sitting here at my computer, and the building starts shaking: ‘Oh, well, there’s another launch,'” he said.
Regarding this year’s record launch number, Platt said, “SpaceX is really leading the show.” In fact, SpaceX rockets accounted for all but four of the Space Coast’s 72 launches this year. Exceptions:
- United Launch Alliance launched the rockets on June 22 (Delta IV Heavy), September 10 (Atlas V), and October 6 (Atlas V).
- Relativity Space launched the world’s first 3D printed rocket during a demonstration mission on March 22.
To conclude this historic year, SpaceX crews launched a triple-core Falcon Heavy rocket followed by a Falcon 9 rocket in 2 hours and 54 minutes Thursday night from Cape Canaveral.
“2023 has been a year of unprecedented growth for Florida’s aviation industry, including a record number of launches from Cape Canaveral. By the end of the year, nearly 70% of all U.S. launches will have occurred in Florida.” Space Florida President and CEO Rob Long said in an email.
“This pace not only demonstrates Florida’s position as a world leader and prime location for global aviation trade, it also reflects the overall health of the industry. However, even as we reflect on what our partners across the industry have accomplished this year, 2024 looks even brighter,” Long said. “.
Intensifying the infrastructure related to the launch
A new rocket will enter the mix next year. United Launch Alliance will launch the next generation Vulcan rocket — replacing the aging Atlas V rocket and the soon-to-be-retired Delta IV Heavy rocket — during a maiden flight on Jan. 8 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Due to high customer demand, ULA has already amassed a waiting list of more than 70 future Vulcan launches. Aerojet Rocketdyne is striving to build engines for all of those rockets.
“We’re north of 150 engine backlog right now,” Jim Moss, Aerojet Rocketdyne’s vice president of program implementation and integration, said during a media event in November at ULA’s Advanced Space Flight Operations Center at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
These RL10 engines were manufactured in West Palm Beach, Moss said. Annual production will rise from 16 to 18 engines to 40, with new additive manufacturing techniques replacing pipe welding manufacturing.
“We’re moving away from manual manufacturing and becoming more of a machine-built room. And when it comes to the test area, we’re activating a second test stand to be able to have the ability to test the engines and deliver them to ULA at the price they’re asking,” Moss told reporters.
Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine credits NASA and the Space Force for boosting the launch cadence by transforming access to space. Instead of buying, owning and operating equipment, he said the two agencies are now looking to buy services from commercial companies, stimulating private investment.
This new government approach “really opens the door to a whole bunch of new capabilities, and a whole new, very large market,” Bridenstine said.
“Suddenly, this is no longer a zero-sum game,” he said of CAPE’s launch capability. “We don’t know what the limit is. And here’s what we know — we’re nowhere near that limit.” .
Rick Neil He is Florida Today’s space correspondent (for more of his stories, click here.) Call Neale at 321-242-3638 or [email protected]. Twitter/X: @Rick Neal1
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