B1078 rises atop a column of fire from the Cape’s historic Space Launch Complex (SLC)-40 at 6:17 p.m. EDT Tuesday. Photo Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has successfully landed its 300th booster, following Tuesday evening’s post-sunset flight of a many-times-used Falcon 9 out of storied Space Launch Complex (SLC)-40 at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The B1078 core—which first sprang onto SpaceX’s scene last March to loft Dragon Endeavour and her Crew-6 quartet of NASA astronauts Steve Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, Russian cosmonaut Andrei Fedyayev and Sultan Al-Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for their six-month Expedition 68/69 increment aboard the International Space Station (ISS)—took flight for the ninth time at 6:17 p.m. EDT and returned eight minutes later to alight on the expansive deck of the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS), “Just Read the Instructions”, situated offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.

下午 6 点 17 分，B1078 在开普敦历史悠久的太空发射综合体 (SLC)-40 的火柱顶上升起。美国东部时间周二。图片来源：SpaceX 继周二晚上多次使用的猎鹰 9 号在佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角太空部队站著名的太空发射综合体 (SLC)-40 发射升空后，SpaceX 已成功着陆第 300 个助推器。 B1078 核心——去年 3 月首次出现在 SpaceX 的舞台上，用于发射 Dragon Endeavour 和她的 Crew-6 四人组，其中包括 NASA 宇航员 Steve Bowen 和 Warren“Woody”Hoburg、俄罗斯宇航员 Andrei Fedyayev 和阿拉伯联合酋长国的 Sultan Al-Neyadi ）以表彰他们在国际空间站 (ISS) 上为期六个月的 Expedition 68/69 增量——于下午 6:17 进行第九次飞行。美国东部夏令时间，八分钟后返回，降落在位于大西洋近海的自主太空港无人机船（ASDS）“只需阅读说明”的宽敞甲板上。

It marked the 300th successful recovery on land or at sea of Falcon 9 boosters or Falcon Heavy side-boosters, an impressive tally which has now seen hardware alight 233 times on drone ships in the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans since April 2016 and 67 times on solid ground at Cape Canaveral or Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., since December 2015. During that span of time, there have been eight failed ASDS landing attempts—most recently in February 2021—and a single “land” landing failure, in which the returning booster was instead ditched at sea in December 2018.

它标志着猎鹰 9 号助推器或猎鹰重型侧助推器在陆地或海上的第 300 次成功回收，这一数字令人印象深刻，自 2016 年 4 月以来，硬件在大西洋或太平洋的无人机船上已起降 233 次，在固体上起降 67 次。自 2015 年 12 月以来，ASDS 着陆尝试在加利福尼亚州卡纳维拉尔角或范登堡太空部队基地进行了八次失败，最近一次是在 2021 年 2 月，还有一次“陆地”着陆失败，其中返回的助推器于 2018 年 12 月被遗弃在海上。

Most recently, the historic B1058 core, which earned renown as the one-time ride to space of “Bob and Doug” and was until last December the most-flown member of SpaceX’s fleet, toppled over on the drone ship’s deck and was partially lost at sea. Notable successes included the synchronized return of Falcon Heavy side-boosters to Landing Zones (LZ)-1 and 2 at the Cape for the first time in February 2018.

最近，具有历史意义的 B1058 核心在无人机船的甲板上翻倒并部分丢失，该核心因“鲍勃和道格”的一次性太空之旅而闻名，直到去年 12 月为止一直是 SpaceX 机队中飞行次数最多的成员在海上。值得注意的成功包括 2018 年 2 月猎鹰重型侧面助推器首次同步返回海角着陆区 (LZ)-1 和 2。

Last night’s launch also marked the tenth Falcon 9 to take flight so far in April, achieving a cadence of a flight every 2.3 days and positioning SpaceX well on track for its oft-stated goal of up to 144 missions by the end of the year. April has seen ten boosters with 102 flights between them—including the first 20-times-used booster—lift over 180 Starlink low-orbiting internet communications satellites, the 11-payload Bandwagon-1 “rideshare” mission to a mid-inclination orbit and the Space Force’s first Weather System Follow-on Microwave (WSF-M) next-generation environmental monitoring satellite.

昨晚的发射也标志着 4 月份迄今为止第十次飞行，实现了每 2.3 天飞行一次的节奏，使 SpaceX 有望实现其经常宣称的到年底执行 144 次任务的目标。 4 月份，共发射了 10 颗助推器，进行了 102 次飞行（包括第一个使用了 20 次的助推器），将超过 180 颗 Starlink 低轨道互联网通信卫星、11 个有效载荷的 Bandwagon-1“拼车”任务送入中倾角轨道，以及太空部队的第一颗气象系统后续微波（WSF-M）下一代环境监测卫星。

In readiness for launch, the East Coast-based drone ship, “Just Read the Instructions”, departed Port Canaveral on Saturday for her recovery position in the Atlantic Ocean. And late Monday, SpaceX announced that it was targeting an expansive “launch window” ranging from 6:17 p.m. EDT through 9:25 p.m. EDT Tuesday, with backup availability on Wednesday and attempts opening at 5:50 p.m. EDT.

为了做好发射准备，位于东海岸的无人机船“Just Read the instructions”于周六离开卡纳维拉尔港前往大西洋的回收位置。周一晚间，SpaceX 宣布其目标是扩大“发射窗口”，从下午 6 点 17 分到下午 6 点 17 分。美国东部时间晚上 9:25美国东部时间周二，周三提供备份，并尝试在下午 5:50 开放。美东时间。

Weather conditions for both attempts were predicted to be 95-percent-favorable, with only a slight risk of violating the Cumulus Cloud Rule on Tuesday. A high-pressure center offshore to Florida’s northeast was expected to “allow a low-topped, mixed stratocumulus-cumulus deck to stream onshore,” the 45th Weather Squadron at Patrick Space Force Base noted, although this was not expected to pose a launch weather concern.

预计这两次尝试的天气条件都是 95% 有利，周二违反积云规则的风险很小。帕特里克太空军基地第 45 气象中队指出，佛罗里达州东北部近海的一个高压中心预计将“允许低顶、混合层积云-积云甲板流向陆上”，尽管预计这不会造成发射天气忧虑。

B1078 took flight on time at 6:17 p.m. EDT, kicking off the ninth voyage of a career which began with Crew-6 in March of last year and went on to lift six batches of Starlinks, a pair of O3b mPOWER broadband satellites and the Space Force’s highly secretive USSF-124 payload of six discrete spacecraft—two Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) satellites for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the final four Tranche 0 Transport and Tracking Layer (TTL) satellites for the Space Development Agency (SDA)—into orbit. Across only 13 months of active operational service, B1078 has transported more than 130 payloads aloft.

B1078于下午6点17分准时起飞。美国东部夏令时间，开启了其职业生涯的第九次航行，该航行从去年 3 月的 Crew-6 开始，随后运载了六批 Starlinks、两颗 O3b mPOWER 宽带卫星和太空军高度机密的 USSF-124 有效载荷（六颗）离散航天器——导弹防御局 (MDA) 的两颗高超音速和弹道跟踪空间传感器 (HBTSS) 卫星以及航天发展局 (SDA) 的最后四颗第 0 阶段传输和跟踪层 (TTL) 卫星进入轨道。在仅 13 个月的现役服役期间，B1078 已在高空运输了 130 多个有效载荷。

Powering uphill under the thrust of her nine Merlin 1D+ engines, the core burned out at 2.5 minutes into ascent and returned to a picture-perfect JRTI touchdown at eight minutes into the flight. Meanwhile, the single Merlin 1D+ Vacuum engine of the second stage ignited for a six-minute “burn” to deliver the 23 Starlinks the rest of the way to orbit, with deployment timed at just shy of 65 minutes into the mission.

在九个 Merlin 1D+ 发动机的推力下上坡时，核心在上升 2.5 分钟时燃尽，并在飞行 8 分钟时恢复到完美的 JRTI 接地。与此同时，第二级的单个 Merlin 1D+ 真空发动机点火，进行了六分钟的“燃烧”，将 23 个星链卫星送入轨道，并在任务开始后不到 65 分钟进行部署。

 As a network, Starlink enables high-speed and low-latency internet provision to over 70 sovereign nations and international markets in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa. Earlier this week, the Hawthorne, Calif.-headquartered launch services provider announced that Starlink connectivity is now available in Albania, bringing to 74 the total number of sovereign nations or regions to receive coverage.

作为一个网络，Starlink 为北美、南美、欧洲、亚洲、大洋洲和非洲的 70 多个主权国家和国际市场提供高速、低延迟的互联网服务。本周早些时候，总部位于加利福尼亚州霍桑的发射服务提供商宣布，星链连接现已在阿尔巴尼亚推出，使接收覆盖的主权国家或地区总数达到 74 个。

The downsized V2 Mini satellites, first flown in February of last year, boast three to four times greater “usable” bandwidth than earlier Starlink iterations. “V2 Minis include key technologies—such as more powerful phased-array antennas and the use of E-Band for backhaul—which will allow Starlink to provide 4x more capacity per satellite than earlier iterations,” SpaceX explained. “Among other enhancements, V2 Minis are equipped with new argon Hall thrusters for on-orbit maneuvering.”

尺寸缩小的 V2 Mini 卫星于去年 2 月首次飞行，其“可用”带宽是早期 Starlink 迭代的三到四倍。 SpaceX 解释说：“V2 Mini 包含关键技术，例如更强大的相控阵天线和使用 E-Band 进行回程，这将使 Starlink 每颗卫星的容量比早期版本高出 4 倍。” “除其他增强功能外，V2 Mini 还配备了新的氩霍尔推进器，用于在轨机动。”

Florida-based intercity operator Brightline adopted Starlink on its trains in 2023, the first passenger rail service in the world to do so. Additionally, El Salvador’s Ministry of Education has begun integrating Starlink capability into its schools to help close the digital divide between urban and remote rural communities and 50 Rwandan schools are now connected via Starlink’s high-speed internet service.

总部位于佛罗里达州的城际运营商 Brightline 于 2023 年在其列车上采用了 Starlink，这是世界上第一个这样做的客运铁路服务。此外，萨尔瓦多教育部已开始将 Starlink 功能整合到其学校中，以帮助缩小城市和偏远农村社区之间的数字鸿沟，50 所卢旺达学校现已通过 Starlink 的高速互联网服务连接。

And in January, SpaceX lofted its first six “Direct-to-Cell” Starlinks, which permit mobile network providers to offer “seamless global access to texting, calling and browsing”, whether “on land, lakes or coastal waters”, without the need to change hardware or firmware. Within six days of that first launch, SpaceX engineers sent and received their first text messages via Direct-to-Cell and as of this month Starlink reportedly has about 2.7 million registered subscribers or customers worldwide.

今年 1 月，SpaceX 推出了首批 6 个“Direct-to-Cell”星链，允许移动网络提供商提供“无缝的全球短信、通话和浏览服务”，无论是“在陆地、湖泊还是沿海水域”，而无需网络连接。需要更改硬件或固件。首次发射后六天内，SpaceX 工程师通过 Direct-to Cell 发送和接收了第一条短信，据报道，截至本月，Starlink 在全球拥有约 270 万注册订户或客户。