Bloomberg Line – SpaceX, billionaire aerospace and transportation company Elon Musk, It continues to benefit from the growth of transportation services and the shared ride mission model launched over a year ago.
Combined flight service consists Where the costs of launching rockets into orbit are assumed between public and private entities that need to send and put into orbit different types of satellites. Such as CubeSats, microsats, picosats, etc. that will be used for communications and Earth observation services.
As revealed by SpaceX’s Joint Flight Sales Director, Jarrod MacLachlan By 2023 all carriers are booked and by 2024 they are already ‘too full’. This shows He explained at a small satellite conference a sharp increase in demand for this type of service. also noticed That only until 2025 will there be quotas available.
SpaceX has flown five of these so-called ‘Transporter’ missions so far (the first was in January 2021), with another one planned for late 2022. The rideshare sales manager noted that he expects to average three rides each year with hundreds of satellite shipments.
MacLachlan noted that while there are full reserves for the next two years, There is the possibility of opening a space for customers looking for last minute flights.
The first ‘Transporter’ mission in January 2021, He put 143 satellites into orbit and the second, in June of that year, sent another 88 payloads into sun-synchronous orbit. In 2022, three more joint flights were made, placing more than 140 payloads into orbit.
The company revealed in April of this year that each trip costs about 50 million US dollars.
simplify measurements
The SpaceX director also noted that due to the increasing demand for this type of travel and the success of the missions carried out so farAnd the The company has considered reducing testing requirements for satellites sent into orbitAs with CubeSats that are shipped in containers. Nevertheless, the company continues to recommend to its customers extensive testing to ensure the reliability of the flights.
Finally, he mentioned it Starship missiles, which have a lot of development, are considered as an option for these joint flights, as the missiles used so far are the Falcon 9.
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