SpaceX to close out 2023 with this aggressive Brevard launch schedule
Of the 40 launches predicted for Brevard County on spacelaunchschedule.com for the remainder of 2023, 12 are for Starlink, the telecommunications constellation rapidly populating low-Earth orbit.
Starlink is a product of Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX. Each launch reaps millions for Florida’s economy and secures the employment of nearly 2,000 people, but some scientists are concerned that the benefits might not stack up to the costs.
Four Cornell University researchers looked at the environmental impact of the first phase of three major constellations — Amazon Kuiper (3,236 satellites), OneWeb (648 satellites), and SpaceX Starlink (4,425 satellites) — and found that emissions of black carbon, aluminum oxide and water vapor exhaust associated with launches supporting space-based broadband service is between 31 and 91 times higher than land-based broadband. The study was released Oct. 7.