SpaceX continues to work: the first two satellites of the global wireless Internet network and the hunt for fairing

Falcon 9 before the start, with a head fairing

Private cosmonautics is not only useful to society, it is also very exciting. It is a pleasure to follow the success of commercial enterprises in the space industry, which are setting new records. Ahead of the whole planet in this regard is the SpaceX company, founded by Ilon Mask.

On February 22, the company launched the Falcon 9 launch vehicle from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. Initially, this launch was planned for delivery to the Spanish PAZ satellite orbit, but then it became clear that the company plans to send some more payload into space.

And the prototypes of Internet satellites for the future Starlink project have become this cargo. The satellites were named Tintin A and Tintin B. On Geektimes, this project was described more than once or twice . Its goal is to provide the whole world with broadband Internet access. First of all, there are regions where there are either no other ways to connect to the global network, or they are very complex and costly.

After the launch of the launch vehicle, SpaceX attempted to return the Falcon 9 fairing. For this, a new type of vessel was created, called Mr. Steven. The ship is a landing platform on which a large network is deployed (the most common, albeit very strong). With this network and planned to catch the fairing.

The other day, Ilon Musk posted an eight-second video on his Twitter. The video shows the exit to space of satellites that successfully undocked from the rocket and went into space. Communication with them has already been established, so there is no reason to doubt the success of the launch.

As mentioned above, these satellites are test samples. On their example will work the entire network. If everything goes well, then in 2019 Ilon Mask will begin to deploy an already full-fledged network of satellites, which will provide the entire planet with wireless Internet. Ilon Musk joked that the global Wi-Fi password is “martians,” that is, “Martians.”


The cost of fairing is about $ 6 million. So returning them to Earth, followed by restoration and re-launch can save the company a significant amount of funds. SpaceX has already learned how to return to Earth rocket stages, and with their re-launch. Now it is the turn of fairing.


They are separated from the rocket three minutes after launch and return to Earth. After this comes the next stage of the operation - you need to catch the fairings and start again in the case. Soft landing fairing is provided by parachutes and its own engines. The parachute is controlled; at the expense of GPS signals, it directs the fairing to the vessel described above.

Unfortunately, an hour after the launch, it was not possible to return the fairing. He did not hit the net, splashing on the water a few hundred meters from the ship. Rather, only half of the fairing splashed down, which was intact.


Earlier, SpaceX has already managed to return the fairings, but now for the first time for this purpose a specialized vessel was sent to the ocean, which was discussed above. Probably, over time, the company will learn to accurately reduce the fairing and the ship at one point, as it did, for example, with the steps of the Falcon 9 rocket. Initially, the steps also fell into the water past a barge that went to meet them, then exploded on board the vessel. But then the engineers debugged this process, and now everything is going on, as if by the hour.

As for the satellites, the mass of each of them is 386 kg. At the first stage, about 800 satellites are planned to be commissioned to enter the global Internet network, which will allow creating full coverage of the United States and adjacent regions.

The altitude to which the satellites will be sent ranges from 1,150 to 1,325 km. This can significantly reduce the response time. SpaceX expects the delay to not exceed 25-35 ms. In modern satellite systems, this figure is about 600 ms. If the company Ilona Mask succeeds, then the global satellite Internet will be closer to wired Internet access services in terms of delay rates.