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SpaceX launches Turksat 5A communications satellite for Turkey, lands rocket:
SpaceX kicked off what is expected to be another launch-packed year by delivering a Turkish communications satellite to orbit tonight (Jan. 7).
A 230-ft-tall (70 m) Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 40 here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9:15 p.m. EST (0215 GMT on Jan. 8), about 45 minutes into a planned four-hour window, carrying the Turksat 5A satellite into space. The brief delay was due to a downrange tracking issue, SpaceX said during its live launch broadcast.
[...] Today's flight was the fourth launch for this particular Falcon 9 first stage. The booster, designated B1060, previously lofted an upgraded GPS III satellite for the U.S. Space Force in June 2020, followed by launches of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites in September and October.
[...] the Falcon 9 deposited the 7,700-lb. (3,500 kilograms) Turksat 5A satellite into orbit about 33 minutes after liftoff. The spacecraft is designed to operate for approximately 15 years, providing broadband coverage to Turkey, the Middle East, Europe and portions of Africa.
SpaceX will also launch the spacecraft's counterpart, Turksat 5B, later this year.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by takyon on Friday January 08 2021, @09:10PM (4 children)
Guess the month/year of the next Falcon 9 failure.
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(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 08 2021, @09:22PM (1 child)
I was wondering about turksat. Sounds like something you might catch from a nasty prostitute.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 08 2021, @10:54PM
The article clearly states the delivery method for turksat is an eagle, not a turkish prostitute. A big fat eagle. A falcon one might say.
the lesson here is not to fuck an eagle or you'll get the covid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @08:35PM (1 child)
I'm missing out on the joke, apparently. How do NASCAR and predicting month/year of a failure go together here?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday January 09 2021, @09:09PM
It's been said that NASCAR is boring and people only watch it for the crashes.
Now SpaceX has made Falcon 9 missions relatively routine and boring. But there's going to be another 5-10 years of Falcon 9 missions even as they transition to Starship. Maybe quality will go down as they shift resources away from Falcon 9 and over to Starship.
I don't think they can ever guarantee 100% success for booster landings because an engine failure can prevent it from slowing down enough. Not that the customer cares, it's SpaceX's problem. Then there is also the possibility of a complete mission failure. That has only happened twice, but there was a scare on the March 18, 2020 Starlink mission when one of the engines shut down prematurely.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @07:55PM (3 children)
This is what the future of rocketry looks like. The fourth launch for this rocket, and the response is crickets. It somehow isn't news any more. The only other production rocket to see reuse was the Shuttle. Buran was supposed to be reusable, but only ever flew a single test flight before being abandoned. Blue Origin successfully recovered a first stage last year, but I can't see any indication it will be flown again, or even that they will try again. At least they're trying. Tried? SLS? The most expensive rocket never flown, using the most expensive engines ever flown, and they aren't even thinking about trying to recover or reuse. :(
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday January 09 2021, @09:19PM (1 child)
Fully reusable will be a completely different era from partially reusable, with 1-2 orders of magnitude of cost reduction possible. Partially reusable rockets will look even more quaint than non-reusable rockets look today when compared to partially reusable (the cost reduction is relatively modest, around 50% so far), and any lingering non-reusable rockets like SLS will become a complete joke.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2021, @10:12PM
SLS was a sick joke from day 1. I remember when they did their request for public input on how to incorporate Shuttle components into the new design. I thought they couldn't be serious, that only a complete moron or a corrupt politician would ever design a rocket like that, but here we are. With the amount of money they've shoveled into that gaping maw, Musk would probably be auctioning off tickets to immigrate to his shiny new Mars colony.
(Score: 1) by multistrand on Saturday January 09 2021, @10:25PM
Watching the videos of the boosters landing is honestly more exciting than watching launch video. Especially the sea landings.
(Score: 1) by TommyJ on Monday January 11 2021, @03:14PM
Thanks for sharing. To me, this is further proof that the satellite launch market is huge. And it is constantly growing. Recently I found an article on the growth rate of the satellite market at 20 percent per year until at least 2025. And that's great. This will give us new players. And it will give us new reasons for accomplishment. Obviously, there is a demand for new companies that can provide similar services in every niche. From launching small satellites into orbit to fairly large