Strong winds force SpaceX to delay Falcon 9 launch

The rocket is a single core of a Falcon 9 and stands at 229 feet tall (70-metre).  

One of the companies using the rocket is Hisdesat, a Spanish telecommunications  company. 

The PAZ satellite can generate high-resolution images of the Earth’s surface.

There will also be two two test probes, called Microsat-2a and -2b, for a planned global broadband Internet network. 

SpaceX hopes to use the satellites to start building a global satellite internet by 2024.  

A few minutes after the initial launch, the payload fairings will separate from the top of the rocket. 

These are an improved version of previous models and SpaceX hopes to recover them after the launch. 

The fairing costs $6 million (£4.3 million) to produce and could bring down the cost of subsequent rocket launches.

To recover these fairings, SpaceX has designed and built a grabber which aims to catch at least one of them. 

Failing catching them, the grabber – called Mr Steven – will be used to pluck them from the Pacific Ocean. 

Mr Steven is used by SpaceX to recover the rocket fairings. The fairings are made of carbon fibre and an aluminium honeycomb and are worth s $6 million (£4.3 million) to produce and could bring down the cost of subsequent rocket launches. They are set to fall into the Pacific ocean and Elon Musk has called their recovery method Mr Steven (pictured)  and referred to it as a ‘catcher’s mitt’

The main booster was used previously, in August 2017, so SpaceX will not be recovering the booster for a third launch. 

Elon Musk and SpaceX charges around $40 million per flight.  

Timeline before launch 

1 hour 13 minutes: SpaceX Launch Director verifies go for propellant load –

1 hour 10 minutes: RP-1 (rocket grade kerosene) loading underway –

35 minutes: LOX (liquid oxygen) loading underway –

7 minutes: Falcon 9 begins engine chill prior to launch

1 minute: Flight computer commanded to begin final prelaunch checks –

1 minute: Propellant tank pressurization to flight pressure begins –

45 seconds: SpaceX Launch Director verifies go for launch –

3 seconds: Engine controller commands engine ignition sequence to start –

0 seconds: Liftoff 

Timeline after launch 

At 9:17am ET (14:17 GMT) the rocket will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California.

1 minute 17 seconds: The Falcon 9 rocket reaches Max Q, the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure. 

The first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines produce about 1.7 million pounds of thrust.

2 minutes 29 seconds: MECO- Main Engine Cut Off – will occur. The 9 Merlin engines will shut down 

2 minutes 33 seconds: Stage 1 Separation – Moments after MECO the first stage separates form the second stage

2 minutes 40 seconds: Stage 2 ignition – After the release of stage 1 the vacuum Merlin 1D engine will ignite for about six minutes 

2 minutes 56 seconds: Fairing jettison – The expensive 17 foot (5 metre) diameter payload fairing will jettison once the rocket ascends through low atmosphere. The fairings are made of carbon fibre and a honeycomb aluminium core. 

8 minutes 58 seconds: ECO 1 – Second Engine Cut Off – Once in a 317-mile-high (511 kilometres) orbit the Merlin 1D vacuum engine will switch off. 

10 minutes 58 seconds: Paz separation –  The Paz spacecraft deploys from the rocket to begin its five-and-a-half-year Earth observation mission. 

SpaceX’s two Microsat secondary payloads are expected to separate after Paz.   

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is launching the first of two test ‘space internet’ satellites.

The are the first in a constellation of thousands of satellites, designed to provide low-cost broadband internet service from low Earth orbit. 

The constellation is informally known as Starlink, and is being pioneered at SpaceX’s facilities in Redmond, Washington.

Its goal is to beam superfast internet into your home from space.

While satellite internet has been around for a while, it has suffered from high latency and unreliable connections;

Starlink is different. SpaceX says putting a ‘constellation’ of satellites in low earth orbit would provide high-speed, cable-like internet all over the world.

The billionaire’s company wants to create the global system to help it generate more cash.

Musk has previously said the venture could give three billion people who currently do not have access to the internet a cheap way of getting online.

It could also help fund a future city on Mars.

Helping humanity reach the red planet is one of Musk’s long-stated aims and was what inspired him to start SpaceX.

The company recently filed plans with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch 4,425 satellites into orbit above the Earth – three times as many that are currently in operation.

‘Once fully deployed, the SpaceX system will pass over virtually all parts of the Earth’s surface and therefore, in principle, have the ability to provide ubiquitous global service,’ the firm said.

‘Every point on the Earth’s surface will see, at all times, a SpaceX satellite.’

The network will provide internet access to the US and the rest of the world, it added.

It is expected to take more than five years and $9.8 billion (£7.1bn) of investment, although satellite internet has proved an expensive market in the past and analysts expect the final bill will be higher.

Musk compared the project to ‘rebuilding the internet in space’, as it would reduce reliance on the existing network of undersea fibre-optic cables which criss-cross the planet.

In the US, the FCC welcomed the scheme as a way to provide internet connections to more people.

SpaceX tries to re-use rockets, payload fairings, boosters and other parts to try to cut down on the cost of each rocket mission.

For example, the total cost of a Falcon 9 launch is estimated to be about $61 million.

The firm will make its second attempt at recovering a payload fairing on Wednesday when it launches a Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a PAZ satellite, from California.

In an incredible accomplishment, the Falcon Heavy’s reused side boosters landed smoothly back down to Earth on two separate launchpads about 8 minutes in.

The payload fairings are clam shell-like nose cone halves that protect the craft’s payload.

SpaceX recovered a payload fairing for the first time in 2017. 

The space company has also re-used first-stage and second-stage rocket boosters, in addition to a previously flown Dragon spacecraft.