A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket raised a record 143 small satellites in polar orbit on Sunday in the company’s first dedicated “shared participation” mission, a response to growing demand for low-cost space access by smaller, non-traditional companies and institutions.
The “Transporter 1” mission also served to recall the ongoing debate on what role the government should play in regulating the increasingly full dominance of low Earth orbit, where collisions would create high-speed shrapnel that would threaten other spacecraft.
“There are no universally accepted‘ road rules ’for the safety of space operations, let alone a regulatory regime for active risk management and collision prevention,” the Aerospace Safety Advisory Committee wrote. of NASA in its recently published 2020 annual report.
“As the potential for orbital collisions increases with increasing congestion, it is important to recognize that risks to astronauts, critical national security capabilities, and global space trade are also increasing.”
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Running a day late due to bad weather, the Transporter 1 mission began with a shaky roar at 10 a.m. ET when the Falcon 9 left Cape Canaveral and moved in a rare southeast trajectory toward a 326-mile orbit of height around the poles of the Earth.
After propelling the rocket out of the low atmosphere, the first stage, which was making its fifth flight, crashed and headed for a landing on a sea drone ship southeast of Miami. It was SpaceX’s 73rd successful effort recovery and 51st at sea.
The 143 satellites at the top of the second stage were the most ever launched by a single rocket, eclipsing the previous 104-satellite mark set by India’s Polar satellite launch vehicle in February 2017.
“I’m excited to offer access to low-cost orbit to small businesses!” Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, tweeted on Friday.
SpaceX charges a relatively low $ 1 million to launch a 440-pound satellite and $ 5,000 for every 2.2 pounds above that base level. The company states that Transporter missions will be conducted approximately every four months as needed.
Sunday’s flight included a large number of CubeSats, nanosats and other small ships provided by various companies and institutions.
The manifesto included ten SpaceX Internet Starlink broadcast stations, which drove the total launched to date to 1,025, 48 satellite images of the SuperDove Earth built by a planet and a wide variety of “little chats ”Dedicated to commercial applications, technology development and scientific research. and education.
Space flight memorial company Celestis sent cremations in small containers representing 114 “participants,” including ashes from the late CBS News Radio correspondent Dave Barrett, a lifelong space enthusiast.
Car-sharing flights are a recent commercial innovation that offers companies and institutions relatively quick and affordable access to space that they might not otherwise be able to guarantee.
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But critics worry that the rapidly increasing number of satellites, in the absence of government regulation and control, will result in a greater threat of potentially catastrophic collisions.
The Aerospace Safety Advisory Committee described space debris as a “major safety issue” and the “dominant contributor in calculating crew prediction losses” for the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner spacecraft and the space capsule Orion by Lockheed Martin.
Space debris also contributes to two of the three main risks facing the International Space Station.
“The danger persists and continues to grow exponentially,” the report states. “Space is becoming increasingly congested. For example, CubeSats and other small satellites are launching with increasing frequency and several companies are deploying mega-constellations with hundreds or even thousands of satellites.” .
The U.S. Space Force provides satellite tracking, but it is becoming increasingly difficult and there is no regulatory framework governing active risk management and collision avoidance.
“Given the recent increase in non-traditional commercial space operations, including satellite service, space tourism, and the deployment of a large number of satellites to provide worldwide Internet access, it can be appropriate to update existing roles and responsibilities, ”the ASAP said.
“As things stand today, there are no clear lines of authority to direct coherence among the many entities operating in space.”