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From Orbit To Kick-off
How Starlink, SpaceX and Qatar Airways sent two World Cup balls to space and back.
The Al Rihla
The Al Rihla, which means “the journey” in Arabic, is the official match ball of the World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
Epic Journey
In an effort to enable a particularly epic journey for this year’s games, the Starlink and SpaceX teams partnered with Qatar Airways to send two World Cup balls to space and back.
Al Rihla Mission Stats
Mission Log
The Qatar Airways team safely delivered the two balls from Doha to the Starlink team in Los Angeles.
The two balls were then transported from Los Angeles to Cape Canaveral in preparation for their spaceflight.
Following liftoff, the two balls reached a max altitude of 123 km and max speed of 8272 km/hr on their journey to space and back.
The two balls were returned to Earth by a Falcon 9 rocket, landing on one of SpaceX’s droneships a few hundred miles from shore.
Falcon 9 returned to port with the two balls which were transferred to the Starlink team for certification and shipment.
The Starlink team handed off the balls to the Qatar Airways team who boarded the balls on the next flight to Doha, Qatar.
The two balls arrived in Doha just in time for the opening of the World Cup 2022.
Congratulations to all 32 teams competing in this year’s World Cup!
