All Questions
Tagged with orbital-maneuverspacex
12 questions
3votes
1answer
1kviews
How do Starlink trains spread into separate orbits with equidistant orbital slots?
Starlink satellites are launched in batches of 60. They are released from the launch vehicle, and then have to spread out – not only into equidistant slots along a single orbit ring, but now ...
- 507
9votes
1answer
2kviews
Is SpaceX propulsively deorbiting a Starlink satellite already?
The plot below shows that most of the SpaceX Starlink satellites have moved from circa 450 km to circa 550 kilometers already, using their krypton-based ion engines. A few, along with four ...
- 153k
7votes
1answer
2kviews
How will Starlink satellites deploy from the fairing and reach their orbits?
Elon Musk posted this picture of the first 60 Starlink satellites packed densely into the fairing of the Falcon scheduled to launch in a few hours. There doesn't appear to be a launcher or ejector to ...
- 13.7k
5votes
1answer
382views
How does SpaceX's Dragon get to the ISS?
How does SpaceX's Dragon capsule get to the ISS? Does Dragon use the onboard Draco thrusters in order to raise its orbit to the station or does the second stage of the Falcon 9 perform the majority of ...
17votes
1answer
3kviews
Was SpaceX's launch of Formosat-5 more vertical than normal for any particular reason?
Reading both the abstract and the plain language summary of the recent paper published in the journal Space Weather Gigantic Circular Shock Acoustic Waves in the Ionosphere Triggered by the Launch of ...
- 153k
5votes
3answers
3kviews
How do multiple satellites deployed in the same launch reach their different final orbits?
For example on the Iridium-4 launch from SpaceX on 22-12-2017, 10 satellites are deployed almost at the same time. How do the satellites go into their own separate orbits after they are deployed? When ...
6votes
1answer
532views
How are multiple low orbit communication satellites per launch distributed along an orbital plane for global coverage?
SpaceX talks about launching 4,425 communication satellites into 83 different orbital planes at 1,100 km altitude. That's about 50 satellites per orbital plane. In terms of capacity to LEO, a Falcon 9 ...
- 27.1k
22votes
7answers
6kviews
How does a spacecraft know that it is in orbit?
After a 5 year long journey in space, Juno finally reached and started orbiting Jupiter. How does the probe actually know that it is in orbit, so that it can send confirmation message like 'Welcome to ...
- 323
9votes
3answers
941views
Why rotate the Falcon 9 2nd stage after deployment?
Towards the end of the JCSAT-14 live webcast, after the satellite was deployed, we could see small thrusters firing on the second stage, starting to rotate it: The webcast ended shortly afterwards, ...
- 1,325
4votes
1answer
1kviews
How did SES-9 reach geostationary orbit from inclined transfer orbit (from F9 2nd stage)
The Spaceflight Now article Flight timeline for Falcon 9’s launch of SES 9 says near the end that the Falcon 9 2nd stage will leave SES-9 in an elliptical, inclined transfer orbit. And Falcon 9 rocket ...
- 153k
8votes
2answers
1kviews
What will be "unique" about upcoming SES-9 GTO transfer profile by SpaceX?
In the SES-9 mission press kit, SpaceX mentions: "Given this mission’s unique GTO profile, a successful landing is not expected." What is considered "unique" about this transfer orbit's profile? At ...
- 153k
2votes
1answer
538views
Falcon 9 1.1 demo flight (flight 6) - Was the second stage burn meant to test deorbit?
On F9 flight 6, the first demo of the V1.1 configuration, the putative rationale for the extra second stage burn was to demonstrate relight capabilities for Geosync, and really, any orbit that ...
- 80.7k
