Jean Pierrie A. Tech 10.02.2020 07:Oct AM EDT

SpaceX Unfortunately Stops Attempted Launch of Starlink Satellites

SpaceX was only 18 seconds away from launching its 60 Starlink communications satellites. The possible cause of the abort wasn't specified by the company and it didn't give any new launch time and date.

Siva Baradvaj, SpaceX's space operations engineer, said, "There's a thousand ways that a launch can go wrong, and only one way it can go right. Now overall, the vehicle does appear to be in good health, but that will end our launch attempt for today." He mentioned this while in a live broadcast during the launch attempt.

With its launch site at Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the Falcon 9 rocket was set to be on liftoff by 9:17 a.m. EDT. Unfortunately, because of weather and other significant factors, the mission was postponed at least twice.

SpaceX and Starlink in a nutshell

SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002. The company's formal name is Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Musk established the company with the goal of reducing space transportation costs. Once this is achieved, the company's main goal ultimately points at colonizing Mars. SpaceX is an aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company that is currently based in California.

Starlink provides satellite Internet access. It consists of a satellite constellation that is being constructed by SpaceX. Working in tandem with ground transceivers, this constellation comprises of thousands of small satellites in low Earth orbit.

This venture began last 2015 and yearly, the company continuously makes multiple attempts of launching newer batches of its mass-produced satellites in space.

SpaceX plans to have an additional 30,000 Starlink satellites to supplement its 12,000 Starlink satellites that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has already approved. As of this year, the company has already successfully sent 775 Starlink satellites to orbit. Elon Musk's company plans to have launches every two weeks to achieve its goal of having 12,000 satellites operational.

According to astronomers, there were more of these satellites that have already been deployed but 27 of them, at least, have burned up.

SpaceX filed documents with the Federal Communications Commission. According to these, the company is also testing its system with hundreds of Internet users in North America while increasing its number of satellites in orbit. At the moment, the service is only open in certain areas of Canada and the northern United States.

Starlink: What connection speeds can it offer?

Kate Tice, SpaceX's senior program reliability engineer, said during a Starlink launch last September 3, "Starlink has super-low latency and download speeds greater than 100 Mbps." SpaceX, in one of its tweets, went on into describing that the connection speeds it offers are "fast enough to stream multiple HD movies at once and still have bandwidth to spare."

Elon Musk even publicly tested the Starlink network last October 2019. He used the network's internet connection to post a tweet on Twitter.