Ignition, thunder and bright light and One NZ is a step closer to launching Starlink-based cellular service

Rocket launches can be a bit random, as in a great many things have to align pretty much perfectly for them to take place. For One NZ the uncertainty around schedules must be a real nail-biter, as the telco would like its Starlink-based mobile phone service from space going sooner rather than later. It is a fully commercial project after all.

The launch date and time of SpaceX's Falcon 9 kept moving, but on Sunday at around 21:53 Pacific Time the moment had  come. A group of Kiwi journalists had assembled at a viewing area a short distance away from the launch site Vandenberg Space Force Base, as media accreditation had been denied last minute to enter the military facility. That denial was to be expected perhaps; it meant hanging out on a gravel road in the cold and dark night with the full moon behind us instead.

The question was: would Falcon 9 actually take off just before 10 pm, or would we have a long night ahead as apparently as the launch window closed just before 2 am in the morning?

The "t" countdown started as expected and... if there's one thing you're left with after seeing a rocket filled with huge amounts of flammable liquid oxygen and RP-1 kerosene propellant and hi-tech gear hurl itself into space, it's that seeing launches on TV and video is nothing like being there in person as the craft takes off. The violent power of the launch with a light that's too intense to look directly at - and which the SpaceX staffers kindly warned us rocket newbies not to do - and a loud sound that you can feel is pure Götterdämmerung awe.

Sadly, the camera that was meant to be used to capture the launch didn't cooperate when it was meant to. An iPhone 16 Pro quickly whipped out managed to capture some of the excitement but was overwhelmed by the bright brute force of Falcon 9.

The whole two-stage booster affair lasted what seemed an alarmingly short period of time, but the low Earth orbit mission to deploy new Starlink satellites with cellular service capabilities - and this included the One NZ units - was successful. Not that we could see the Starlinks dropping out of the Falcon 9 from the ground.

Here's a better video from SpaceX, which was transmitted live using... Starlink of course.

It's quite a long clip, and the actual take off starts 30:04 into the video.

Two more launches are required for the complete "Direct to Cell" or D2C constellation to be ready for service. Falcon 9 has seen 397 launches already, so maybe it's all a bit routine for SpaceX engineers by now. Then there's this:

Falcon 9’s first stage lands on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship, completing this booster’s 20th mission pic.twitter.com/RtMWaKTGKt

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 18, 2024

There's more to come on how One NZ's satellite-based mobile service will work when it launches, perhaps at the end of this year. The longer story here is how One NZ is spending money on improving the 60 per cent terrestrial mobile service coverage it has in New Zealand currently, ideally without promotion that raises the Commerce Commission's hackles. 

Either way, New Zealand is one of the first countries to have D2C, along with the United States, Canada, Switzerland and Japan.

Juha attended the SpaceX launch event as a guest of One NZ.