You might've missed it this weekend while soaking up the sunny weather over at Georgetown Waterfront or Meridian Hill Park. With the help of Elon Musk's SpaceX, 10 satellites from a McLean, Va. company were deployed into low-Earth orbit.
About one hour after a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California Sunday, telecommunications and data provider Iridium Communications' second batch of satellites were sent into orbit. The lift happened at 1:25 p.m. PDT Sunday. Now, there are a total of 20 Iridium NEXT satellites in space, allowing Iridium to develop faster global broadband speeds through smaller, cheaper antennas.
In total, SpaceX will deploy 75 Iridium satellites to help complete Iridium NEXT's global satellite constellation. Sunday's launch was the second trip of what will be a total of eight launches. SpaceX's first launch for Iridium was in January.
"Right now, it’s two down with six more launches to go," said Matt Desch, Iridium's chief executive officer, in a statement. "Our operations team is eagerly awaiting this new batch of satellites and is ready to begin the testing and validation process. After several weeks of fine-tuning, the next set of 'slot swaps' will begin, bringing more Iridium NEXT satellites into operational service, and bringing us closer to an exciting new era for our network, company and partners."
Overall, 81 new satellites are being built, with nine serving as on-orbit spares and six as on-the-ground spares. Each satellite was designed by Thales Alenia Space, a system prime contractor, and is being integrated by Thales' subcontractor, Orbital ATK, in Arizona.
Watch a play-by-play of the satellite launches from Sunday's successful deployment—
Image used via public domain — credit NASA
