SpaceX to launch most of its Starlink internet constellation from Cape Canaveral

Emre Kelly | Florida Today

Show Caption Hide Caption SpaceX launches PAZ mission from California SpaceX successfully launched its PAZ mission with two secondary Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018.

If SpaceX's ambitious communications goals coalesce, the company will operate a mega-constellation of thousands of internet-beaming satellites in low Earth orbit – and most of those will be launched from the Space Coast, according to environmental documents released by NASA.

Federal documents obtained by FLORIDA TODAY early this month indicate that SpaceX is planning on launching most of the constellation's first batch, or 4,425 minifridge-sized satellites, from Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 in the coming years.

"SpaceX plans to launch more than 4,000 satellites with the intention that most of these satellites will be launched from LC-39A and LC-40," the draft environmental impact assessment for SpaceX's future KSC expansions reads. "Short- and long-term moderate adverse effects would be expected."

Whether SpaceX launches the small satellites on dedicated missions or as secondary payloads remains to be seen, but the work reaffirms the company's long-term commitments to the Space Coast, especially since the constellation's kickoff will continue well into the 2020s.

[SpaceX just launched the next-gen Falcon 9 rocket. Here's what we know.]

Indications about the constellation's future launch sites were found in the 73-page NASA document, which mainly detailed the massive expansions SpaceX has planned for KSC in the not-too-distant future. They include a towering, futuristic launch control center standing up to 300 feet tall; a 133,000-square-foot hangar for booster and fairing storage and processing; and a rocket garden for displaying "historic space vehicles."

Known as "Starlink" in federal filings, the constellation currently in the development and testing phases will aim to beam internet connectivity back down to the ground, bypassing complicated Earth-based infrastructure. According to SpaceX's filings with the Federal Communications Commission, users will only need a laptop-sized terminal to gain connectivity to the network, which could eventually include up to 12,000 satellites.

But work is already underway: Two Starlink prototypes were launched from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base in February, and CEO Elon Musk confirmed last month that they were operational and healthy.

"TinTin A & B are both closing the link to ground with phased array at high bandwidth, low latency (25 ms)," he said, referring to the delay between when data transfers begin, which has traditionally been an issue for satellite-based internet. "Good enough to play fast response video games."

In April, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said the company will spend about $10 billion or more to deploy the constellation and its related systems, but that it would ultimately be worth the effort and "change the world."

Shotwell's statements came a month after SpaceX secured critical authorization from the FCC to begin constructing the constellation. The California-based company, the FCC said, must launch 50 percent of 4,425 satellites by 2024 and fully complete that first phase by 2027.

SpaceX's launch manifest separate from Starlink, meanwhile, is expected to continue later this month after a maintenance-related downtime period for the Eastern Range. Teams are targeting no earlier than 5:41 a.m. June 29 for the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket and cargo-packed Dragon spacecraft slated to rendezvous with the International Space Station. Launch Complex 40 will host the mission.

Twenty-seven of SpaceX's Merlin main engines are slated to vault the next massively popular Falcon Heavy rocket from KSC's pad 39A no earlier than late October or early November, according to the latest Air Force schedules. That launch, known as Space Technology Program-2, will include dozens of deployments ranging from military payloads to science-related NASA spacecraft.

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook at @EmreKelly.

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