At 11 o’clock in the evening on January 24, the Falcon 9 rocket sent 143 small satellites from various national agencies to the sky at one time, setting the record for the largest number of simultaneous launches in history. The two cubic satellites Yushan independently developed by the Taiwan team , Flying Squirrel is fortunate to sit on this train. (Although nearly 2 days have passed, they still have not successfully communicated with the Taiwan ground station)
The launch mission, called Transporter-1, is the leader in a series of SpaceX’s SmallSat Rideshare project. Although the launch was delayed for several days, it was successful only once and surpassed November 2018. The record of 108 satellites launched by Northrop Grumman in the NG-10 Cygnus mission has become the vehicle that has launched the most satellites at a time.
According to “CNBC”, the clients on the Transporter-1 mission include: Planet Labs, Exolaunch, D-Orbit, Kepler Communications, Spaceflight Inc, Nanoracks, NASA, Capella Space, iQPS, Loft Orbital, Spire Global, ICEYE, HawkEye 360, Astrocast, School of Applied Engineering, University of South Florida, Taiwan Space Center, etc.
In addition to helping to launch the customer’s satellites into the sky, SpaceX also brought its own 10 Starlink satellites in this launch, and these 10 satellites are very special: for the first time it is equipped with a laser optical communication system for testing. The area of the receiving station is like the ocean, allowing satellites to transmit signals directly in the air with laser light and other satellites.
SpaceX’s rideshare offering provides increased access to space for small satellite operators seeking a reliable, affordable ride to orbit pic.twitter.com/frnWnKYC9B
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 24, 2021
However, because the Falcon 9 rocket has been recovered 4 times before, and the amount of satellite delivery is quite large, SpaceX adopts a dog-leg launch trajectory to avoid the land, just in case the rocket explodes and crashes. Residents on the ground.
Ultra-low prices that even customers are afraid of
But Mike Safyan, vice president of Planet, the largest customer of the Transporter-1 mission and who sent 48 SuperDove satellites this time, once said: “The launch price of SpaceX is too low, and we can’t believe what we are looking at.”
If you take the “special plane” service of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket: only one payload will be launched per way, the launch service price will be US$62 million, but in the small satellite sharing plan, SpaceX will have hundreds of small satellites (and The cost of launching to the sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) is as low as US$1 million per 200 kg. It is important to know that the cost of putting the payload into low-Earth orbit by traditional rocket service providers is as high as 0.45 kg (1 pound). At US$10,000, the former has almost restructured the market structure.
Of course, this kind of shared flight phenomenon has become more and more common in the new space industry. For example, the world’s first commercial satellite launch company Arianespace (founded in 1980)’s Vega launch vehicle (Vega) has also begun to focus on small In the satellite launch market, the Vega launch vehicle they operate costs about US$40 million per launch, with a carrying capacity of about 1,500 kg.
Virgin Orbit, an independent company from Virgin Galactic, is also working on the development of “aircraft rockets”. The rockets are carried into mid-air and released by planes, and then the rockets are ignited from mid-air to a predetermined orbit. This is to enter the market at a lower cost.
However, the current service provider that dominates the small satellite launch market is Rocket Lab’s Light Rocket Electron, with a single carrying capacity of about 150 kg and a launch price of 7 million US dollars. Perhaps the biggest difference between this company and SpaceX is that SpaceX’s rocket launch schedule is not determined by the main customer, but according to SpaceX’s own schedule; if customers want on-call service, they can consider choosing Rocket Lab. Launch your own satellite into orbit as soon as possible.
Although, these companies are currently difficult to compete with SpaceX.
(Source of the first image:SpaceX/Twitter）
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