SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Two Satellites in October 2018
This week, SpaceX received the green light from the US authorities to deliver about 12,000 satellites to orbit. Due to this, it will be possible to improve the quality and level of inexpensive wireless access to the Internet by 2020. Thus, the SpaceX network will significantly increase the number of satellites around the Earth.
According to the UN representatives on space issues, since the creation of the first artificial satellite Sputnik (USSR) in 1957, mankind launched a little more than 8,000 objects into space. Of these, a quarter or half still work.
On November 15, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced permission for SpaceX to launch 7,518 satellites, adding to them 4,425 satellites that have already been approved. So far, none of the satellites have been launched. An agreement with FFC states that the company Ilona Mask has 6 years to deliver half of the devices to orbit, and 9 years to complete the formation of a satellite network. In SpaceX they want most of the satellites to fly in near-Earth orbit (335-346 km altitude above the Earth). This will install them below the ISS, which is located at an altitude of 400 km above the ground. SpaceX's interest in this arrangement is to reduce the communication time between Internet users on Earth and space satellites, accelerating the signal speed.
However, such a low altitude is difficult to maintain, while smaller satellites have a shorter service life than large ones. The FCC also opened access for other companies to launch satellites, including Kepler (140), Telesat (117) and LeoSat (78).
