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Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Will Florida's Space Coast surpass 100 annual rocket launches for 1st time this year?
Will the annual number of orbital rockets launched from Florida's Space Coast reach triple digits for the first time by year's end? Stay tuned. During 2024, a record-shattering 93 launches took flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's neighboring Kennedy Space Center, easily zooming past the previous record of 72 launches in 2023. But in an unprecedented cadence, 61 launches have already racked up thus far during 2025. That's a full month and a half — or 47 days — ahead of last year's record pace. "The increase that you're seeing, especially in our eastern and western ranges, reflects the deployment of these mega-constellations for broadband, direct-to-device and other things," said Karen Jones, a space economist and technology strategist with the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at The Aerospace Corp. "It's healthy. It's showing that market's growing," Jones said. Cape Canaveral: Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA, ULA rocket launch schedule at Cape Canaveral SpaceX Starlink high-speed-internet missions continue to dominate the Space Coast's launch schedule. As of Wednesday, July 16, Starlink boasted more than six million customers and 7,945 functioning satellites in low-Earth orbit, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. That sum does not include the latest batch of 26 Starlink satellites launched Wednesday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. In the Cape's 61st liftoff of the year thus far, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 24 Amazon Project Kuiper internet-beaming satellites into low-Earth orbit on the KF-01 mission Wednesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Project Kuiper is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' competitor to Elon Musk's Starlink. By comparison, Florida's 61st launch of 2024 did not occur until Labor Day weekend, on Aug. 28. That's when SpaceX's Starlink 8-10 mission lifted off from the Space Force installation, deploying 21 Starlink satellites. The rise of orbiting mega-constellations Worldwide, nearly 11,900 operational satellites were orbiting Earth by the end of 2024 — a sum that skyrocketed 454% since 2018. The global annual launch rate increased by 129% during that same span, The Aerospace Corp. reported in a paper co-authored by Jones that was published two weeks ago. Aside from Starlink, count Amazon's Project Kuiper and AST SpaceMobile among the commercial companies also vying to ramp up future communications-satellite launches from Florida. Also following suit: China. "Not surprisingly, the world's second-largest economy is not remaining earthbound. While China has one commercial spaceport, the country plans to launch more than 36,000 satellites in the near future," The Aerospace Corp. paper said. "The constellation GuoWang ('SatNet') is expected to have about 13,000 satellites and compete with Starlink services. Another project to rival Starlink is Qianfan ('Thousand Sails')," the paper said. Though demand for individual launches continues to surge, Jones said this trend may back off in coming years as companies consolidate and far-larger rockets boasting jumbo-sized fairings like SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's New Glenn let companies "maximize their productivity and minimize resource consumption." What's more, Jones' paper noted the commercialization of low-Earth orbit is showing signs of maturity "as early entrants capture market share and later entrants strive to differentiate themselves." BryceTech, an Alexandria, Virginia, analytics firm, forecasts that an average of 3,100 spacecraft per year will be deployed through 2028, decreasing to 2,500 spacecraft from 2029 to 2033. Meanwhile, SpaceX seeks environmental approvals to start launching Starship-Super Heavy rocket systems from KSC and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Blue Origin is expected to launch its second powerhouse New Glenn rocket as early as mid-August from the Space Force installation. NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 highlights launch schedule Looking ahead on the Eastern Range calendar, two missions are coming up from Cape Canaveral. Note that SpaceX is likely to launch more Starlink missions during this timeframe: A Falcon 9 should deploy the Boeing-built ninth and 10th O3B mPOWER satellites into medium-Earth orbit Monday, July 21, owner/operator SES reported. The launch window extends from 5 p.m. to 8:13 p.m. NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 is scheduled for launch at 12:09 p.m. July 31, sending NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov up for a long-duration stay aboard the International Space Station. For at least the second straight year, high-profile officials kicked off January with public launch-total predictions that proved far too optimistic. The Space Force initially projected up to 156 launches would take flight this year from Florida's Space Coast. For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit Another easy way: Click here to sign up for our weekly Space newsletter. Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@ Twitter/X: @RickNeale1 Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Will Cape Canaveral see unprecedented 100 rocket launches during 2025? Solve the daily Crossword
Sydney Morning Herald
08-05-2025
- Science
- Sydney Morning Herald
A Soviet space probe will crash back to Earth. It could land in Australia
'I'm not worried – I'm not telling all my friends to go to the basement for this,' said Darren McKnight, senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, a company that tracks objects in orbit and monitors Kosmos-482 six times a day. 'Usually about once a week we have a large object reenter Earth's atmosphere where some remnants of it will survive to the ground.' When will Kosmos-482 come back to Earth? Estimates change daily, but the predicted days of re-entry are currently this weekend. One calculation of the window by The Aerospace Corp, a US-government supported non-profit that tracks space debris, suggests 1:37pm Saturday AEST – plus or minus 16 hours. Marco Langbroek, a scientist and satellite tracker at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands who has tracked Kosmos-482 for years, puts the estimate closer to 5:51pm AEST, plus or minus about 20 hours. Where will it land? No one knows. 'And we won't know until after the fact,' McDowell said. That's because Kosmos-482 is hurtling through space at more than 27,000km/h, and it will be going that fast until atmospheric friction pumps the brakes. So getting the timing wrong by even a half-hour means the spacecraft will re-enter more than half a world away, in a different spot. What's known is that Kosmos-482's orbit places it between 52 degrees north latitude and 52 degrees south latitude, which covers Africa, Australia, most of the Americas and much of south- and mid-latitude Europe and Asia. 'There are three things that can happen when something reenters: a splash, a thud or an ouch,' McKnight said. 'A splash is really good,' he said, and may be most likely because so much of Earth is covered in oceans. He said the hope was to avoid the 'thud' or the 'ouch'. Will the spacecraft survive impact? Assuming Kosmos-482 survives re-entry – and it should, as long as its heat shield is intact – the spacecraft will be going about 240km/h when it smashes into whatever it smashes into, Langbroek calculated. 'I don't think there's going to be a lot left afterward,' McDowell said. 'Imagine putting your car into a wall at 150 miles an hour [241km/h] and seeing how much of it is left.' The heat of re-entry should make Kosmos-482 visible as a bright streak through the sky if its return occurs over a populated area at night. If pieces of the spacecraft survive and are recovered, they legally belong to Russia. 'Under the law, if you find something, you have an obligation to return it,' said Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Centre for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi. 'Russia is considered to be the registered owner and therefore continues to have jurisdiction and control over the object.' How do we know the identity of this object? Some 25 years ago, McDowell was going through the North American Aerospace Defence Command's catalogue of about 25,000 orbital objects and trying to pin an identity on each. 'Most of them, the answer is, 'Well, this is a piece of exploded rocket from something fairly boring',' he recalls. Loading But one of them, object 6073, was a bit odd. Launched in 1972 from Kazakhstan, it ended up in a highly elliptical orbit, travelling between 200 and 10,000 kilometres from Earth. As he studied its orbit and size, McDowell surmised it must be the wayward Kosmos-482 lander – not just a piece of debris from the failed launch. The conclusion was supported by observations from the ground, as well as a recently declassified Soviet document.
The Age
08-05-2025
- Science
- The Age
A Soviet space probe will crash back to Earth. It could land in Australia
'I'm not worried – I'm not telling all my friends to go to the basement for this,' said Darren McKnight, senior technical fellow at LeoLabs, a company that tracks objects in orbit and monitors Kosmos-482 six times a day. 'Usually about once a week we have a large object reenter Earth's atmosphere where some remnants of it will survive to the ground.' When will Kosmos-482 come back to Earth? Estimates change daily, but the predicted days of re-entry are currently this weekend. One calculation of the window by The Aerospace Corp, a US-government supported non-profit that tracks space debris, suggests 1:37pm Saturday AEST – plus or minus 16 hours. Marco Langbroek, a scientist and satellite tracker at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands who has tracked Kosmos-482 for years, puts the estimate closer to 5:51pm AEST, plus or minus about 20 hours. Where will it land? No one knows. 'And we won't know until after the fact,' McDowell said. That's because Kosmos-482 is hurtling through space at more than 27,000km/h, and it will be going that fast until atmospheric friction pumps the brakes. So getting the timing wrong by even a half-hour means the spacecraft will re-enter more than half a world away, in a different spot. What's known is that Kosmos-482's orbit places it between 52 degrees north latitude and 52 degrees south latitude, which covers Africa, Australia, most of the Americas and much of south- and mid-latitude Europe and Asia. 'There are three things that can happen when something reenters: a splash, a thud or an ouch,' McKnight said. 'A splash is really good,' he said, and may be most likely because so much of Earth is covered in oceans. He said the hope was to avoid the 'thud' or the 'ouch'. Will the spacecraft survive impact? Assuming Kosmos-482 survives re-entry – and it should, as long as its heat shield is intact – the spacecraft will be going about 240km/h when it smashes into whatever it smashes into, Langbroek calculated. 'I don't think there's going to be a lot left afterward,' McDowell said. 'Imagine putting your car into a wall at 150 miles an hour [241km/h] and seeing how much of it is left.' The heat of re-entry should make Kosmos-482 visible as a bright streak through the sky if its return occurs over a populated area at night. If pieces of the spacecraft survive and are recovered, they legally belong to Russia. 'Under the law, if you find something, you have an obligation to return it,' said Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Centre for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi. 'Russia is considered to be the registered owner and therefore continues to have jurisdiction and control over the object.' How do we know the identity of this object? Some 25 years ago, McDowell was going through the North American Aerospace Defence Command's catalogue of about 25,000 orbital objects and trying to pin an identity on each. 'Most of them, the answer is, 'Well, this is a piece of exploded rocket from something fairly boring',' he recalls. Loading But one of them, object 6073, was a bit odd. Launched in 1972 from Kazakhstan, it ended up in a highly elliptical orbit, travelling between 200 and 10,000 kilometres from Earth. As he studied its orbit and size, McDowell surmised it must be the wayward Kosmos-482 lander – not just a piece of debris from the failed launch. The conclusion was supported by observations from the ground, as well as a recently declassified Soviet document.
