The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket completed its first mission in 2021 by launching the Turkish-owned Turksat 5A communications satellite into orbit, despite Armenia’s call to cancel the launch.
Hundreds of Armenian activists gathered around the firm’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, last October, hoping the company that owns Elon Musk would break ties with Turkey.
Protesters had placards claiming that the satellite would be used to “kill civilians” targeting Armenians with unmanned aerial vehicles amid deadly conflict between the two nations.
Apparently their voices were not heard, as SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 with the satellite at the head on Thursday evening.
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The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket completed its first mission in 2021 by launching the Turkish-owned Turksat 5A communications satellite into orbit, despite the cry of Armenian activists to cancel the launch. It seems that their voices were not heard, as SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 with the satellite at the head on Thursday evening.
The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan takes place in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, controlled mostly by ethnic Armenians.
Fighting erupts periodically around the often deadly Nagorno-Karabakh borders, especially in 2016 and July 2020.
Since the last fighting broke out in October, dozens have been killed and wounded in apparent bombing by both sides, with each country blaming the other.
Armenian activists took to the streets to protest SpaceX’s ties to their enemy and also sent firm emails with the theme “What if Elon were Armenian.”
Hundreds of Armenian activists gathered at the firm’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, in October, hoping Elon Musk-owned company would break ties with Turkey.
In the email, obtained by TechCrunch, activists explained that Armenians around the world, an ethnic and national group, “have suffered under the authoritarian government and regional influence of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan,” and the word “genocide” was shown several times in the message.
TechCrunch exchanged emails with a person listed as the creator of the campaign and said, “There are calls for sanctions in Turkey by the United States and other NATO countries.”
“SpaceX is strongly urged to take all these factors into account and decide for itself whether or not it wants to help Turkey in the face of such overwhelming and clear evidence of criminal actions.”
“At the very least, Elon Musk and SpaceX can stop the launch to see what these investigations lead to. While this may mean a loss of profits for SpaceX, it would be a huge leap for global progress.”
According to Space.com, SpaceX plans to send another Turskat satellite into space later this year.
Currently, the Turskat 5A satellite is floating in orbit which, according to its Turkish owners, will improve communication capabilities in Turkey, along with parts of Asia, Europe and Africa.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 took off from Cape Canaveral at 9:15 p.m. Thursday, after a 45-minute delay, the cause has yet to be revealed.
After the mission, the Falcon 9 booster fell back to earth to land on the drone ship. Just read the instructions sitting in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 minutes before takeoff for its first mission of 2021
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 took off from Cape Canaveral at 9:15 p.m. Thursday, after a 45-minute delay: the cause has not yet been revealed.
SpaceX had a launch season in 2020 (it had 29 successful missions), but in 2021 it will be twice as exciting for the company that plans to send its Falcon 9 rockets into orbit more than 40 times.
Musk’s company is also set to launch its latest Starship prototype, serial number 9 (SN9), as soon as this weekend, according to airspace restrictions.
SN9 would attempt the same mission as its predecessor Serial Number 8 (SN8) which completed a 7.8-mile high-altitude test flight on 8 December.
The massive rocket hit its flight target, but exploded on the launch pad the moment it touched.
However, Musk considered the launch a success: he said that the prototype, although destroyed, collected a large amount of data that will bring SpaceX one step further when sending humans to Mars aboard the rocket. .