Elon Musk’s SpaceX will launch 60 satellites this Tuesday as part of its ambitious Starlink program to provide world-wide broadband internet coverage. Plans to launch the satellites on Monday 27 January were scrubbed due to unfavorable wind conditions. Experts had forewarned that the odds would be about 50-50 for a Monday launch, but the weather appears to be more favorable Tuesday with Space.Com reporting an 80% likelihood winds will remain calm enough for the launch. The Starlink payload will be carried by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Upon successfully launching, the rocket will shed its booster and fairings on its way to deploy the satellites more than 300 miles above the Earth’s surface. SpaceX will attempt to land the expended booster on an autonomous vessel, and it’ll try to catch the two halves of the payload fairing in giant nets – which is just as awesome as it sounds. Musk promises that the Starlink program will eventually cover the entire planet in reliable broadband, but critics have questioned his methods. SpaceX is authorized to fly up to 12,000 satellites currently and could eventually have as many as 42,000 in orbit around the Earth in the future. This is troubling for astronomers, many of whom fear SpaceX’s satellites will block or distort our view of the heavens, essentially making it harder for our planet to see what’s going on beyond our front porch. Currently, there are around 2,000 artificial satellites orbiting the Earth, and there’s only been about 9,000 in history. The “mega-constellation” of internet satellites that Musk intends to create would litter the sky with potentially visible objects.
They’re bright, and there are going to be a lot of them. If SpaceX launches all 12,000, they will outnumber stars visible to the naked eye. — Alex Parker (@Alex_Parker) May 25, 2019 Musk dismissed the IAU’s concerns on Twitter:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 27, 2019 The 60 Starlink satellites launching Tuesday will join another batch of 60 that went up last year. Musk expects to begin providing internet coverage once the company has about 400 satellites in place. The launch is scheduled for 9:28 EST (14:28 UTC). You can watch it live on the Starlink website here.
