SpaceX shares images of a beautiful sunrise in orbit

An orbital sunrise is seen from space and occurs when the sun rises above the Earth’s horizon. If the astronauts aboard the International Space Station…

While Elon Musk often leaves us with controversial and contentious news, it’s true that his aerospace company called SpaceX continues to provide us with incredible images and surprising advances in the field of space exploration.

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Now SpaceX has shared images of an impressive orbital sunrise captured during the deployment of another batch of Starlink satellites, their satellite internet system that aims to provide coverage to the entire planet.

The video shows the orbital sunrise that occurs just as the SpaceX vehicle deploys the Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.

What is an orbital sunrise?

An orbital sunrise is seen from space and occurs when the sun rises over the Earth’s horizon. If the astronauts aboard the International Space Station were to look out the window for 24 consecutive hours, they would see 16 orbital sunrises due to the high speed at which the facility orbits our planet.

The Falcon 9 rocket that powers the latest Starlink mission took off from Kennedy Space Center on Monday, May 6th. The vehicle deployed 23 Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit to continue expanding the company’s internet service from space.

This is the fifteenth flight of the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket for this mission. It previously launched CRS-24, Eutelsat Hotbird 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19, and now 11 Starlink missions. It was also the 31st Starlink mission of 2024, with most flights deploying between 20 and 23 satellites each.

Until last month, there were over 5,800 Starlink satellites in orbit after the initial deployment of 60 satellites in 2019. SpaceX expects to have up to 42,000 Starlink satellites in orbit in the coming years.

The main objective of the service is to bring Internet connectivity to remote areas of the world, although it also serves customers in other locations, with around 2.7 million people subscribed to the service.

Other companies are also preparing to launch their own internet services from space using small satellites. For example, Amazon is advancing with Project Kuiper and plans to launch its first satellites this year.

Author: Chema Carvajal Sarabia

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