Falcon 9 blasted into orbit from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying 34 SpaceX Starlink satellites and BlueWalker 3, a prototype satellite built by AST SpaceMobile billed as the largest commercial communications array ever flown in space space. Takeoff was at 9:20 p.m. EDT (0120 GMT) on Saturday night (September 10), with the Falcon 9 booster making SpaceX history when it returned to Earth.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on September 10, 2022 carrying 34 Starlink satellites and the massive BlueWalker 3 satellite. (Image: SpaceX) “This is a 14th landing for this booster,” Jesse Anderson, SpaceX director of production engineering, said during live commentary (opens in new tab). The mission also set a few other records. It was SpaceX’s first five-engine mission to deploy payloads into orbit, as well as the company’s heaviest payload ever. (BlueWalker 3 weighs 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg), Anderson said.)
“One of our most complex missions,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote about the flight on Twitter (opens in new tab).

Meet the BlueWalker 3 from AST SpaceMobile

While SpaceX’s primary goal for Saturday’s launch was to add 34 new Starlink satellites to its growing constellation in orbit, AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 satellite stood out for both its size and its ambitious mission. The satellite, which will measure 693 square feet (64 square meters) when fully deployed, is the largest commercial antenna array launched into space. Its mission: to test new technology designed to provide global mobile service directly to users from space. The goal is to close coverage gaps and provide seamless high-speed phone and data service to underserved areas. “The reason our satellite is big is because to communicate with a low-power, low-internal-power phone, you just need a big antenna on one side with a lot of power, and so that’s a critical part of our infrastructure.” said AST SpaceMobile Chief Strategy Officer Scott Wisniewski in an interview with Space.com. “We believe this is very important for direct communication with regular hearing aids, without changing the hearing aid, without additional burden to the user.” It will be several weeks before AST SpaceMobile commands BlueWalker 3 to deploy its spring-loaded antenna, Wisniewski said. During that time, the company will perform a series of health checks to ensure the satellite is OK, he added.

Artist’s rendering of AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 mobile service satellite in orbit. (Image credit: Nokia/AST SpaceMobile) AST SpaceMobile has partnered with 25 mobile service providers, 10 of which will participate in the company’s planned six-month shakedown cruise of BlueWalker 3 to test its capabilities on six continents around the world. Those partners include carriers such as Vodaphone, Rakuten Mobile and Orange and a potential reach of 1.8 million phone users, Wisniewski said. Earlier this summer, the company received FCC permission to test BlueWalker 3 service in Texas and Hawaii in the United States. To provide full coverage, the AST SpaceMobile will need more than one satellite. “This is sort of the culmination of our company’s R&D stage before we move into satellite production next year,” Wisniewski said.

The BlueWalker 3 satellite appears to be deployed on Earth. It is the largest commercial communications array sent into space. (Image: SpaceX) The company plans to follow BlueWalker 3 with five operational satellites in 2023. It eventually aims to build a constellation of at least 100 giant satellites to provide complete coverage. AST SpaceMobile isn’t alone in its pursuit of mobile phone coverage from space. Lynk Global is working on a similar project, and Elon Musk revealed last month that SpaceX is partnering with T-Mobile to provide cellular service with its Starlink satellites. Because of their size, the AST SpaceMobile satellites may be visible to sky observers from the ground, and some astronomers have criticized the plan for its potential impact on ground-based telescopic observations, according to a report in New Scientist (opens in new tab ). If that complaint sounds familiar, that’s because it’s one of the ones chasing SpaceX’s own Starlink constellation when the company started launching dozens of them at a time.

SpaceX’s most-launched Falcon 9 rocket to date is seen atop the drone ship Shortfall Of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean after its 14th launch and landing on September 10, 2022. (Image credit: SpaceX) About 8.5 minutes after the launch of the BlueWalker 3 and Starlink satellites, the first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket returned to Earth for a precision landing on the company’s droneship A Shortfall Of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. The landing set a new record for the number of launches of a Falcon 9 booster. Before Saturday’s flight, the Falcon 9 stage launched eight different Starlink missions, as well as SpaceX’s first astronaut test flight for NASA (called Demo-2) in May 2020. the ANASIS-2 satellite for South Korea in July 2020; the CRS-21 uncrewed cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA in December 2020, and the Transporter 1 and Transporter 3 missions in January 2021 and January 2022, respectively. When Elon Musk unveiled the Falcon 9 Block 5 booster in 2018, he said SpaceX’s goal was to fly them at least 10 times. With each subsequent flight, the company has pushed the limits of reusability of rockets as part of its effort to lower the cost of spaceflight.

A view of the 34 Starlink satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket during its launch on September 10, 2022. (Image: SpaceX) Similarly, SpaceX has continued to increase the size of the Starlink constellation, as well as the number of countries and coverage areas in recent years. In August, Royal Caribbean announced (opens in new tab) that it will use Starlink on all of its cruise ships by 2023, with SpaceX already offering services for RVs, boats and homes around the world. The company has launched more than 3,200 satellites since 2019, with thousands more to follow. SpaceX plans to complete its initial constellation of 12,000 Starlinks in orbit and has applied for permission to boost that to up to 30,000 satellites. On Sunday, September 11, SpaceX plans to launch another Starlink mission. That flight, which will carry 54 Starlink satellites, is scheduled to lift off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:53 p.m. EDT (0253 GMT). You will be able to watch the launch live on Space.com at the time of liftoff. Saturday’s launch marked the 41st year for SpaceX. It was the company’s 179th launch overall. Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.