Elon Musk launches satellite tv for pc to check methods for personal area station

In the early hours of Sunday, Elon Musk’s SpaceX despatched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 18 totally different satellites into area on a mission it’s calling Bandwagon-4. One of those satellites was Haven Demo, a take a look at satellite tv for pc designed to assist Vast Space—a U.S.-based aerospace firm—put together for the launch of Haven-1, a privately owned area station.

Why It Matters

Haven Demo will test if key methods—like flight computer systems and navigation—work correctly in area. If all of it goes to plan, Haven-1, which Vast Space plans to launch mid-2026, may grow to be the first-ever business area station that may accommodate as much as 4 astronauts at a time, marking a serious milestone for the U.S. in pushing the boundaries of area commercialization.

What To Know

At 1:09 a.m. EDT on November 2, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying Haven Demo and 17 different satellites, together with ones that shall be operated by South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development (ADD), the Berlin-based firm Exolaunch, Turkey’s Fergani Space, and U.S. weather-forecasting outfit Tomorrow Companies, and Starcloud, which carried an NVIDIA H100 AI chip to see if it’s potential to construct a man-made intelligence-powered, space-based knowledge middle. 

Around eight minutes after it launched, the rocket’s first half landed safely again on Earth, so SpaceX can reuse it for future flights, whereas the higher half—carrying the satellites—continued into orbit, releasing the satellites over an hour-long time period.  

The first satellite tv for pc to be deployed, round 12 minutes after the Falcon 9 was launched, was the fifth 425 Korea satellite tv for pc from South Korea’s ADD, which is designed for navy surveillance.  Due to the confidential nature of this satellite tv for pc, SpaceX needed to finish the dwell launch protection earlier than every other satellite tv for pc was deployed. 

Bandwagon-4 is the fourth mission in SpaceX’s Bandwagon program, which permits a number of international locations or companies to share a single rocket launch.

What People Are Saying

Investor, Mario Nawfal stated in a publish on X: “From ignition to orbit, the Falcon 9 delivered its cosmic cargo with surgical precision, reminding competitors that SpaceX doesn’t miss, it multiplies. At this point, SpaceX isn’t just launching satellites, it’s launching standards the rest of the industry struggles to catch up with.”

Cofounder and CEO of Starcloud, Philip Johnston, stated in a publish on X: “This is the first time anyone has flown an @NVIDIA H100 in space, which is orders of magnitude more powerful GPU compute than has ever been in space before.”

What Happens Next

Now SpaceX has efficiently launched the Haven Demo satellite tv for pc, the following steps are all about testing. The satellite tv for pc will begin checking its methods—like the way it strikes in area, how its computer systems work, and the way effectively it might probably navigate. These assessments are essential as a result of they’ll assist Vast Space be sure that the whole lot works earlier than they launch Haven-1.