Feature Image Credit: William Harwod/CBS News
The world’s largest private space sector-major SpaceX has set a world record by launching 143 satellites, beating the previous record held by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) that had launched 104 satellites in a single launch in February 2017.
Elon Musk, who is the owner of SpaceX, has managed to accomplish this new feat using the Falcon 9 rocket, reports Times of India.
The mission, which SpaceX has called “Transporter-1”, marks a significant feat using the Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from Florida’s Cape Carnival at 8.31 pm IST and placed 143 commercial and government satellites into space in a total of about 90 minutes.
The satellites placed into space include CubeSats, Microsats and 10 Starlink satellites. The mission started to deploy satellites into place after about 30 minutes of lift-off.
With this successful launch, SpaceX will be a major competitor for ISRO and the company only charges a very low fee of $15,000 per kilogram for each satellite to be lifted to the polar sun-synchronous orbit.
Elon Musk is also looking to gain a foothold in the telecom industry with his new venture, Starlink Internet. Musk told investors that Starlink is angling for a piece of a $1 trillion market made up of in-flight internet, maritime services, demand in China and India and rural customers. SpaceX has launched around 1,000 satellites for the service and is now signing up early customers in the US, UK and Canada.