It took less than 36 hours for private space company Elon Musk’s to launch three Falcon-9 rockets. SpaceX has launched more than 50 new satellites for its constellation Starlink, one military satellite for Germany, and the last mission turned out to be extremely suspicious. On one occasion, one of the winners set another record for the number of starts.
The first on June 18 at 00:09 local time was launched by a two-stage rocket SpaceX from the spaceport. Kennedy in Florida, which launched 53 Starlink satellites. After launch, the first step successfully returned, sitting on a floating platform. For this degree, it was the thirteenth launch and landing – an absolute record currently for Falcon-9 rockets.
The last and, as Space News writes, secret launch took place on June 19 at 12:27 pm from Cape Canaveral. The only cargo that became known was the Globalstar FM15, a spare satellite for the Globalstar satellite operator. However, certain aspects of the mission suggest that there was something else at the top.
This is evidenced by the unusual three-time activation of the upper stage engines, and the landing of the carrier on a floating platform, although the light weight of the Globestar satellite allowed the carrier to return to the launch pad. In addition, it became known that most of the cost of production and launch of the FM15 satellite was paid by an anonymous client. It funded almost all of the 17 new satellites that Globetstar ordered from Canadian MDA in February.
It will also be recalled that in March this year, the Falcon 9 rocket launched 53 Starlink satellites with a total weight of more than 16 tons for the first time. Never before has the Falcon 9 taken off with such a load. That is, Starlink satellites have significantly increased due to the use of the latest versions of laser space communications. In addition, for the B1051, this was the twelfth flight in the last three years.
