| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-09-12, 08:52 |
|---|---|
| Scheduled for (local) | 2024-09-12, 04:52 (EDT) |
| Launch site | SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida, USA |
| Booster | B1078-13 |
| Landing | LZ-1 |
| Payload | BlueBird Block 1 #1-5 |
| Customer | AST SpaceMobile |
| Mission success criteria | Successful delivery of payload to LEO |
Webcasts
| Stream | Link |
|---|---|
| Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBL5U_wwYqw |
| Spaceflight Now | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oeq5HVrfpFQ |
| NASASpaceflight | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oqZtThBoG4 |
| The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqLMETRJ7Ho |
| SpaceX | https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1834149741481046421 |
| The Space Devs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZvfKKyE8jw |
Stats
Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:
☑️ 19th consecutive successful Falcon 9 launch (if successful)
☑️ 43rd launch from SLC-40 this year
☑️ 6 days, 17:19:00 turnaround for this pad
☑️ 41 day turnaround for B1078
☑️ 44th landing on LZ-1
☑️ 348th Falcon Family Booster landing, 359th Falcon recovery attempt
☑️ 88th Falcon 9 mission this year, 374th Falcon 9 mission overall
☑️ 89th SpaceX mission of 2024, 389th mission overall (excluding Starship flights)
☑️ 91th SpaceX launch this year, 402nd SpaceX launch overall (including Starship flights)
Mission info
This mission will launch the first 5 commercial satellites in AST SpaceMobile’s cellphone-compatible broadband constellation. In orbit, they will provide connectivity for smartphones outside cellular coverage in partnership with mobile network operators (MNOs).
The satellites use AST & Science’s patented technologies for connecting to cellphones in a space environment for their SpaceMobile constellation. Each satellite will deploy a 10 m diameter phased array antenna with an area of 64 meters squared consisting of numerous identical sub-antenna modules to connect directly to standard mobile phones.
Woah just learned about this, space based cellular network with unmodified smartphones is pretty amazing!
Now I wonder if it’s better to have bigger satellites in space, or smaller starlink satellites that need bigger receiver phased array on the ground.
Do these satellite communicate with each other over laser in vacuum?
https://youtu.be/LxSUAI7XAGQ
I’m not sure if the Bluebird sats have laser links, but the Starlink sats do. I think as launch costs continue to decrease, we’ll probably see larger antennas in space and smaller antennas on the ground.