In case it is not obvious, this article is satirical.

In the long term, there's the potential to provide a base load of power to augment the intermittent availability of terrestrial wind and solar energy—a key need if the world is to de-carbonize its electricity generation.

But that's probably putting the cart before the horse. One of the biggest challenges of space-based solar power is that it has always been theoretical. It should work. But will it work? Trying out a low-cost demonstrator mission in the next couple of years is a fine way of finally putting that question to rest.

Source

| Scheduled for (UTC) | 2024-10-20, 05:13 | |

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| | Scheduled for (local) | 2024-10-19, 22:13 (PDT) | | Launch site | SLC-4E, Vandenberg SFB, California, USA | | Booster | B1082-7 | | Landing | LZ-4 | | Payload | 20 OneWeb satellites | | Customer | Eutelsat OneWeb | | Mission success criteria | Successful delivery of payload to Polar Orbit |

Webcasts

| Stream | Link | |

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| | Space Affairs | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-681Bx6XNJg | Spaceflight Now | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdmvurETHjE | NASASpaceflight | none | The Launch Pad | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJrY0uuUBMM | SpaceX | https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1847865913959469097 | The Space Devs |

Stats

Sourced from NextSpaceflight and r/SpaceX:

☑️ 31st consecutive successful Falcon 9 launch (if successful)

☑️ 34th launch from SLC-4E this year

☑️ 4 days, 20:52:00 turnaround for this pad

☑️ 21st landing on LZ-4

☑️ 358th Falcon family booster landing, 368th Falcon recovery attempt

☑️ 98th Falcon 9 mission this year, 384th Falcon 9 mission overall

☑️ 100th SpaceX mission of 2024, 400th mission overall (excluding Starship flights)

☑️ 103rd SpaceX launch this year, 414th SpaceX launch overall (including Starship flights)

Mission info

• SpaceX mission page
• NextSpaceflight mission page

The 20th flight dedicated to the OneWeb high-speed Internet constellation. The initial constellation consists of 648 satellites. Later, the constellation could be expanded to more than 900 satellites depending on demand. OneWeb is expected to begin customer demonstrations in 2022, then provide a global, 24-hour service in 2022/2023.

Each satellite in the constellation weighs 147.7 kg. They are powered by Russian ion engines, manufactured by OKB-Fakel, and have two solar panels for their power supply. The first generation of satellites, operating on a quasi-polar orbit (1 200 km x 86.4°), cannot perform inter-satellite communication, and can only be used near a ground relay station.

Courtesy of u/PerAsperaAdMars in The Other Place.