SpaceX is determined to continue its ambitious project by sending Starlink satellites into orbit for providing internet access to remote regions across the world. Oddly enough, there’s still about 40% of the world population that’s not connected to the internet.
775 Starlink satellites were sent into orbit by September 15, 2020. However, the last attempt was a failure due to a recovery issue of the Falcon 9 rocket.
The September 17 launch was cancelled
60 new Starlink satellites were expected to launch on September 17 at 2:19 p.m. EDT (1819 GMT) from Pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
SpaceX stated:
Standing down from today’s Starlink launch due to recovery issue; vehicle and payload remain healthy. Next launch opportunity is tomorrow, September 18 at 1:57 p.m. EDT, but we are keeping an eye on weather
SpaceX did not give details for the “recovery issue,” but we can guess that it’s linked to the recovering of the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket.
SpaceX plans to send at least 12,000 Starlink satellites into orbit, with a possible extension to 40,000. There’s already a total of 2,666 satellites that are orbiting Earth (not only Starlink), but some scientists are concerned that more satellites launched by SpaceX will jeopardize the possibility of space exploration from telescopes mounted on Earth. Elon Musk assures us that it won’t be the case and that space exploration will still be in good hands.
SpaceX itself reports that it’s building a staggering amount of 120 Starlink satellites each month, and there’s no wonder why the space agency is taking its plan very seriously. SpaceX also stated for the Federal Communications Commission that it had invested more than $70 million for developing thousands of consumer user terminals each month.
According to a United Nations report from 2017, most of the world’s population was still lacking internet access permanently at that time. The lowest rates of access to the internet were in Asia and Africa.
