The first nighttime launch of Virgin Orbit's seven satellites took place last night. Virgin Orbit uses a booster that is attached to a modified aircraft that carries it to 30,000 feet and then releases it. The booster makes the rest of it's journey into space.
The plane took off from the Mojave Air and Space Port. The satellites were put in place at 12:55 a.m. On Saturday, July 2, there is a time limit. If you want to watch the launch, you can see a replay of the livestream below.
The company thanked their team for completing a mission to space. A total of seven customer satellites were put into Low Earth Orbital. The company had a previous satellite deployment mission in January.
There was a mission for the U.S. Space Force on Friday. The Compact Total Irradiance Monitor-Flight Demonstration is a small satellite that will measure how much energy is coming from the sun to Earth. It is important for modeling the global climate.
According to the principal investigator for the project, Dave Harber of the University of Colorado, Boulder, the Sun is the main source of energy on Earth. Predicting how Earth's climate might change over time is a key input for model predictions.
The CTIM system is designed to test whether small satellites can provide useful scientific data even when measuring large factors like solar irradiance. The Total Irradiance Monitor (TIM) instrument on the Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment is much larger than previous instruments. It will be cheaper and simpler to continue measuring this important factor if it is possible to get the same quality of measurement from a smaller satellite.
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