SpaceX Is Shooting Satellites Into Orbit Again

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying communications satellite launches in December. Image: Wikimedia

Hot on the heels of a successful December satellite launch and just six days into the New Year, SpaceX is back shooting satellites into orbit again.

Yesterday at 5:06 PM the commercial spacecraft and rocket manufacturer, successfully shot a Thaicom 6 communications satellite into a geostationary orbit via its Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The bird took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and is basically a TV satellite. It’ll beam down direct to broadcast service to Thailand, as well as a few other countries in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Madagascar.

I couldn’t figure out exactly what people in Thailand love to watch these days, or why they need more satellites to do it—mostly because I don’t speak Thai—but undoubtedly the new Thaicom 6 bird will be broadcasting some of the ever popular Thai soaps.

The Falcon 9 launch is the eighth successful flight in a row for that platform, according to Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president. This flight was also the final of three flights needed to qualify it for Uncle Sam’s evolved expendable vehicle launch program—which aims to ensure government agencies can send satellites into orbit when they want to. That means SpaceX could be shooting government earth-sucking octopi spy satellites into space someday.

But, SpaceX’s rockets don’t always work so well, as the problems with another Falcon 9 launch in March of 2013 show. Although the drama was over pretty quickly, and the payload was just some fresh fruit, food, and clothes, it was a reminder of how tricky space-travel can be. There were also a couple of times in 2010 when the Falcon 9’s parachutes didn’t deploy on re-entry, another problem that has since been solved.

Despite the company’s notable failures, it’s worth remembering how much of a challenge launching a multimillion dollar 10-story building really is. Overall, 2013 was a pretty good year for SpaceX. The company managed to send it’s first two upgraded Falcon rockets into orbit successfully. And over the summer, SpaceX’s engineers managed to get one of the Falcon 9 test units—called Grasshopper—to rise 820 feet into the air, move 330 feet sideways, and then land on the same spot it took off from. Oh, the Falcon 9 weighs 1,115,200 pounds. That’s pretty fucking impressive, if you ask me.

The company says that it has more than 50 launches planned for the future, which represents close to $5 billion in revenue. Those launches include at least 10 more missions for NASA, resupplying the International Space Station. The company may begin carrying astronauts up there too, considering it’s is modifying its Dragon launch platform to accommodate NASA’s needs.

The company also has plans to build the Falcon Heavy rocket, which according to SpaceX’s hype machine, is the “world’s most powerful rocket.” Once it’s completed—sometime this year—that bad boy will be able to haul the mass equivalent of a 737 jetliner full of passengers, baggage, crew, and fuel. Apparently SpaceX has more than one rocket designed to carry people into space—as far as the Moon or Mars.