SpaceX launches second satellite in 14 days

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off into space yesterday, where it placed a heavy Inmarsat communications satellite in orbit, marking the company's second flight in just two weeks, its sixth so far this year.

The Inmarsat-5 F4 satellite is the fourth in a global constellation of high-speed Ka-band relay stations. The satellites serve aircraft, ships at sea and other government and commercial users around the world.

In the next 90 days or so, the bus-size satellite's on-board thrusters will help circularise the satellite's planned, highly elliptical orbit 22,300 miles above the equator where the relay station's movement will synch with earth, making it appear stationary in the sky.

Inmarsat-5 F4 will join three virtually identical Boeing-built satellites in Inmarsat's $1.6-billion Global Xpress constellation.

"It's the first global seamless broadband service specifically designed for mobile applications," Michele Franci, chief technology officer, Inmarsat, told Spaceflight Now. "That is the background of Inmarsat, mobile applications, so this constellation, and the entire network around it, has been designed to be optimised for mobile users."

The mission got underway at 7:21 pm EDT with the Falcon 9's first-stage engines igniting and an instant later, the rocket was released from the firing stand.

The rocket climbed smoothly into the early evening sky venting a brilliant jet of flame from its nine Merlin 1D engines.

Meanwhile, even as SpaceX and Boeing are in the race to dominate the deployment of up to 30,000 low-orbit 5G communications satellites over the next decade, tax authorities in California are eyeing a piece of the pie in the sky.

Breitbart News had reported last month that the California Franchise Tax Board was proposing to ''tax the movement or attempted movement of people or property - including, without limitation, launch vehicles, satellites, payloads, cargo, refuse, or any other property - to space.''