In the latest exciting news from the Elon Musk company of space transport, there are now two SpaceX satellites that have been recently launched through a Falcon 9 launch rocket; the most interesting thing about the whole venture might just be that both of them are entirely electric in operation.
Over the past two months, Food World News has reported many of the SpaceX launches, as they take on their NASA collaboration further, from a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) to even a climate observatory that's set to study further how our planet's weather and soils function; now, the new SpaceX satellites bring even more great news to rocket science.
According to Forbes, the SpaceX satellites were launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, last Sunday at 10:50 pm local time; it was carried by a Falcon 9 rocket, which was really the only SpaceX item in the launch, as the satellites were from two different customers: Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS), both of them made by Boeing.
The Verge reports that, after the SpaceX satellites launch, the company will be attempting another soft landing for the Falcon 9, as the ultimate purpose behind these rockets is that they may someday become reusable, saving up millions of dollars; however, it seems unlikely that this one could be recovered.
As BBC reports, the SpaceX satellites will be using electric engines to finally reach their orbital positions, at about 36,000km above the equator; this type of propulsion is fairly new technology, and it's becoming a big trend in spacecraft design and deployment, as it gets rid of the traditional (and potentially dangerous) fuel tanks in the chemical engines, and it allows satellites to be launched from smaller and cheaper rockets such as the Falcon 9.
Unfortunately, this also means that the spacecraft will take longer to get into position, which may mean months instead of weeks, though this doesn't mean the new SpaceX satellites are huge news.
