Chris Forrester
SpaceX made a Twitter announcement on April 17 that the company had successfully test-fired the engines on a Falcon 9 rocket in readiness for its next ‘Starlink’ launch of 60 satellites, in a filing by journalist Chris Forrester at the Advanced Television infosite.
Weather permitting, the launch will happen on April 23 at 3:16 p.m., Florida-time (19.16 UTC).
This will be the seventh Starlink overall launch and the sixth operational flight. The batch of 60 satellites will go into LEO. The rocket has previously flown three times.
The rocket booster is designed to land on its drone barge ‘Of Course I Still Love You,’ some 628 kms of down range. The fairing for the launch was previously used to launch the AMOS-17 satellite in August last year.
Advanced Television is also reporting that Arqiva Group has appointed Paul Donovan as the firm’s Chief Executive Officer, with immediate effect.
Donovan has more than 20 years’ experience in senior executive roles across the technology, media and telecommunications sectors. He is currently non-executive Director on Arqiva’s Board and has previously been CEO of Odeon and UCI Cinemas Group and, before that, CEO of eir, Ireland’s leading telecommunications business. He was also a member of the Group’s Executive Committee at Vodafone where he led the Group’s emerging markets businesses.