When Will Falcon 9 Launch Nov 15 2017 Land Again at Cape Canaveral

SpaceX launched Luxembourg's kickoff armed services spacecraft on Midweek, with a flying-proven Falcon 9 conveying the GovSat-1 communications satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit. Liftoff from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex xl was at the starting time of a 121-minute window that opened at xvi:25 Eastern Time (21:25 UTC). Amazingly, the booster survived a water landing, despite the return not involving the drone ship.

GovSat-1, also known as SES-16, is the commencement satellite to exist launched for LuxGovSat, a partnership between the regime of Luxembourg and commercial satellite operator SES. The satellite will provide secure communications for Luxembourg's military and the state's allies, likewise equally supporting civilian regime applications.

The launch was the 5th fourth dimension SpaceX has deployed a payload for SES. Falcon nine's first geosynchronous launch carried the SES-8 satellite to orbit in December 2013, while a March 2022 launch deployed SES-9. The launch of SES-10 last March marked the start re-flight of a previously-flown Falcon 9 kickoff stage, with some other re-used Falcon ix used to deploy SES-eleven in October. This launch again used a flight-proven booster.

The SES-16/GovSat-1 satellite is i of three which SES first announced in February 2015, along with SES-14 and SES-15. Orbital ATK was contracted to build GovSat-i, which is based on the new GeoStar-three double-decker. The satellite has a mass of about 4,230 kilograms (9,330 lb) and is expected to operate for at least 15 years.

Orbital ATK'south GeoStar 3 bus.

The spacecraft'southward propulsion system consists of a unmarried IHI Aerospace BT-4 liquid apogee motor and four Aerojet Rocketdyne XR-5 Hall-effect ion thrusters. The satellite will be powered by a pair of deployable solar arrays.

GovSat-1 was the second satellite based on the GeoStar-three platform to launch. The offset, the Al Yah Satellite Communications Company's Al Yah 3, was launched terminal Thursday atop an Ariane 5ECA rocket which was also carrying SES-14. The Ariane v placed both of its payloads into an off-nominal inclined orbit, although both satellites are still expected to exist able to reach their planned concluding geostationary orbits. SES-15 was launched successfully past a Soyuz rocket last twelvemonth.

The communications payload aboard GovSat-1 consists of X-band and Ka-band transponders, incorporating anti-jamming capabilities, with bandwidth equivalent to 60-eight 36 megahertz units. The spacecraft will exist situated in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 21.5 degrees East, providing coverage of Europe, Africa and the Middle Eastward, besides as the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.

GovSat-1

Too equally serving armed services applications for Luxembourg and its allies, including NATO, GovSat-1 will also be used by Grand duchy of luxembourg'due south government to back up disaster recovery and emergency response operations, to facilitate cooperation betwixt civilian and military agencies and to provide communications for authorities offices in remote locations.

SpaceX used a Falcon 9 rocket to conduct this launch. Falcon 9's forty-eighth flying, the GovSat-1 mission saw the rocket fly in the Falcon 9 v1.2 – or "Full Thrust" – configuration. It was the sixth Falcon ix mission to comprise a previously-flown, or "flight-proven" booster – that is a first stage that has been recovered and refurbished following a previous launch.

Falcon 9 is the only rocket currently flying that is designed to exist partially reusable, with the rocket's first stage – also known as the Core or Booster – capable of making a powered landing either back at the launch site or downrange aboard an Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS). On missions where the first stage is to be recovered, information technology flies equipped with deployable landing legs and grid fins to facilitate a controlled descent and landing.

The first stage that was used for this launch, Cadre 1032, was offset flown terminal May when it helped to boost the NROL-76 payload into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Role, in what was Falcon 9'southward first dedicated launch for the United states of america armed forces. Subsequently completing its role in the low Earth orbit launch, Core 1032 fabricated a successful landing at Cape Canaveral's Landing Zone ane.

B1032 landing later on its offset launch

Core 1032 was non recovered following this mission. As with December's Iridium-Adjacent launch, SpaceX will dispose of the older Block 3 booster by flight it in an expendable configuration, despite notwithstanding sporting landing legs. New-build Falcon nine boosters are currently using the more than capable Block 4 configuration, while the first Block 5 vehicles are expected to fly later this year, and SpaceX appears to have opted non to recover cores that would exist unlikely to ever wing once more.

Despite not attempting to country the phase, SpaceX may still use Cadre 1032 for recovery demonstrations – such as a controlled water landing – after separation. This turned out to be the case, but more surprisingly, the booster survived the test.

This rocket was meant to test very high retrothrust landing in h2o so it didn't hurt the droneship, only amazingly it has survived. Nosotros will try to tow information technology back to shore. pic.twitter.com/hipmgdnq16

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 31, 2018

SpaceX is too aiming to make the Falcon 9'south fairing – which protects the payload every bit it ascends through the atmosphere – reusable. To this end, the company has been conducting a serial of tests with the fairings following separation on operational missions.

Two ships that often support these operations, the Go Searcher and Go Quest, have put to body of water in accelerate of this launch, although information technology is unclear whether these were involved in a fairing recovery attempt or supporting the launch in another way.

The Mr Steven, another ship equipped with arms to bear a recovery net, remains on the West Coast and volition not play a role in the GovSat-1 mission.

This mission lifted off from Infinite Launch Circuitous 40 (SLC-forty) at the Greatcoat Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida's Space Coast. SLC-40 is one of two SpaceX launch complexes on the East Coast of the United states of america, along with Launch Complex 39A at the nearby Kennedy Space Center.

SLC-40 was originally built in the 1960s equally a Titan IIIC launch pad, part of Titan's Integrate-Transfer-Launch (ITL) complex. It was subsequently used past Titan III(34)D and Titan 4 rockets, before SpaceX leased the facility in 2007. The pad was used for Falcon 9'southward maiden flight in 2010 and many of the rocket's early launches, before it was damaged when a Falcon 9 exploded during fuelling for a static fire test ahead of the planned launch of Amos half dozen in September 2016.

Following over a year of repair work, SLC-forty returned to service in December with SpaceX's CRS-13 launch, and also supported the Zuma mission earlier this month. Its reactivation has immune SpaceX to proceed with concluding modifications at LC-39A ahead of the first Falcon Heavy launch – currently scheduled for early side by side month.

SpaceX's SLC-xl – via SpaceX

Falcon nine is a two-stage rocket fuelled past RP-1 propellant which is oxidized by subcooled liquid oxygen. The rocket first flew in June 2010 and has completed 47 launches to date with one failure. These numbers do non include the Amos 6 accident, which did not occur during a launch try.

The Falcon'due south first stage is equipped with nine Merlin-1D engines. These ignited at the three-second mark in the countdown, with Falcon 9 lifting-off at T-zero. Climbing abroad from Cape Canaveral along an easterly trajectory, Falcon passed through the surface area of maximum dynamic pressure – Max-Q – seventy-eight seconds into flight.

The first stage – Core 1032 – powered Falcon 9 for the starting time 2 minutes and 38 seconds of the mission. The mission then reached Principal Engine Cutoff (MECO), the point at which the get-go stage engines shut down in preparation for stage separation. The stages separated 2 seconds after MECO, with the second phase igniting one second subsequently.

RocketCam on the Zuma launch – via SpaceX webcast

The 2d stage uses a single Merlin Vacuum (MVac) engine, a modified Merlin-1D which is optimized to deliver peak performance in the vacuum of space. Information technology fabricated two burns to deliver GovSat-i into orbit – the showtime of which lasted five minutes and 54 seconds. Falcon's payload fairing separated threescore-iii seconds into the starting time burn.

Afterward an eighteen-minute, five-2d coast phase, Falcon ix's upper stage restarted for its second burn down. This lasted sixty-eight seconds, placing GovSat-ane into its planned geosynchronous transfer orbit. Spacecraft separation came four minutes and 31 seconds after the end of the second burn down – at xxx-two minutes and 19 seconds mission elapsed fourth dimension.

The launch was SpaceX'southward second of the year, post-obit their launch of the secretive Zuma satellite for Northrup Grumman earlier this month. Although Falcon 9 performed nominally during that launch, the satellite has not been observed in orbit and is rumored to have failed to dissever and later on been deorbited forth with the rocket's upper stage. Although separating its payload is normally a office of the rocket during launch, it has been reported that for the Zuma mission the separation mechanism was provided by Northrup Grumman every bit part of the payload.

Falcon Heavy during her Static Fire exam – via SpaceX

The side by side scheduled launch for SpaceX will be the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket, currently scheduled for half-dozen February.

The adjacent Falcon nine is scheduled for liftoff from Vandenberg Air Forcefulness Base sometime after 10 February with Spain'south Paz radar imaging satellite, while the rocket's next East coast mission will accept identify a few days later with HispaSat 30W-half dozen.

SpaceX will acquit another mission for SES later this year, with the SES-12 satellite due to lift off aboard a Falcon ix in Apr.

jonesandla1992.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/01/spacex-govsat-1-falcon-9-launch/

Share this post