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During tonight’s Falcon 9 launch of Starlink from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the second stage engine did not complete its second burn. As a result, the Starlink satellites were deployed into a lower than intended orbit. SpaceX has made contact with five of the satellites so far and is attempting to have them raise orbit using their ion thrusters.

There’s also a tweet saying the same thing in fewer words.

This is the affected mission: Starlink 9-3 launch bulletin

Let’s hope it was due to SpaceX pushing the envelope on their in-house Starlink missions in some way, though I have no specific guesses along those lines. Perhaps a manufacturing defect or an operational mistake are more likely to be the leading candidates for the cause.

  • threelonmusketeersMEnglish
    6·
    6 months ago

    Follow-up tweets:

    SpaceX: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1811804948675617115

    The team made contact with 10 of the satellites and attempted to have them raise orbit using their ion thrusters, but they are in an enormously high-drag environment with their perigee, or lowest point of their elliptical orbit, only 135 km above the Earth

    Elon: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1811638892879020243

    We’re updating satellite software to run the ion thrusters at their equivalent of warp 9.

    Unlike a Star Trek episode, this will probably not work, but it’s worth a shot.

    The satellite thrusters need to raise orbit faster than atmospheric drag pulls them down or they burn up.

    SpaceX: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1811805147833729260

    Each pass through perigee removes 5+ km of altitude from the highest point in the satellite orbit. At this level of drag, our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites.

    SpaceX: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1811805238699131093

    As such, the satellites will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and fully demise. They do not pose a threat to other satellites in orbit or to public safety.

    Sounds like they aren’t able to save the satellites, but hopefully they got some useful data.