SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base on the Starlink 3-4 mission. Credit: SpaceX
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with 46 more Starlink internet satellites overnight Wednesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, completing a quartet of rapid-fire polar orbit Starlink missions from the West Coast spaceport since mid-July.
The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 10:40:10 p.m. PDT Tuesday (1:40:10 a.m. EDT Wednesday). The rocket lit nine Merlin 1D engines to power away from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg, a military spaceport about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles.
The kerosene-fueled engines generated 1.7 million pounds of thrust to propel the 1.2-million-pound launch vehicle off the pad. The Falcon 9 climbed through a star-filled sky and head south from the West Coast spaceport, arcing over the Pacific Ocean bound for polar orbit.
The Falcon 9 surpassed the speed of sound in about one minute, then the first stage booster shut down and separated from the Falcon 9’s upper stage about two-and-a-half minutes into the mission. The booster extended four titanium grid fins and reignited some of its engines to slow down for landing on a drone ship in the Pacific a few hundred miles downrange from Vandenberg.
The booster, designated B1063, touched down on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” to complete its seventh flight to space. Around the same time, SpaceX confirmed the upper stage of the Falcon 9 shut off its engine after placing the Starlink satellites into a preliminary transfer orbit.
Liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket from California on the Starlink 3-4 mission, adding 46 more internet relay stations to SpaceX’s global broadband network. https://t.co/OBh55Ssdsdpic.twitter.com/ucd2wdN5ak
A restart of the upper stage engine about 45 minutes later maneuvered the 46 satellites into the proper orbit for deployment. Four retention rods separated from the upper stage about 63 minutes into the mission, allowing the Starlink spacecraft to fly free of the rocket.
The Falcon 9 rocket’s guidance system targeted an orbital altitude between 190 miles and 199 miles (308-by-321 kilometers) at an inclination of 97.6 degrees to the equator.
The mission was numbered Starlink 3-4, and was the 58th dedicated SpaceX launch for the Starlink internet network. It was the ninth SpaceX launch from Vandenberg this year, and the company’s 39th launch of 2022 overall.
The 46 Starlink satellites will launch into one of five low Earth orbit “shells” in SpaceX’s internet constellation. SpaceX began launching dedicated missions into one of the network two polar orbit shells last month. SpaceX has previously launched satellites into the other three shells at inclinations of 53.0 degrees, 53.2 degrees, and 70 degrees to the equator.
After separating from the Falcon 9, the Starlink satellites are expected to disperse and extend solar panels to begin generating electricity to recharge their batteries. The satellites will go through an automated checkout and activation sequence, then use krypton-fueled ion thrusters to raise their altitude to 348 miles (560 kilometers), where they will enter operational service in the Starlink network.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket streaks into the sky in this photo from Ventura, California. Credit: Gene Blevins / LA Daily News
The Starlink satellites each weigh more than a quarter-ton, and are built on SpaceX’s Starlink assembly line in Redmond, Washington. The spacecraft are fitted with laser inter-satellite links to facilitate data transfers in orbit, without needing to relay signals through ground stations, which come with geographical, and sometimes political, constraints. Laser crosslinks can also reduce latency in the Starlink network because signals need to travel a shorter distance.
SpaceX’s Starlink network provides low-latency broadband internet service to consumers around the world. The fleet is the largest constellation of satellites in orbit, with 2,383 Starlink spacecraft currently in service, and 489 more satellites raising their orbits or drifting into their operational positions in the network, according to a tabulation by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and expert tracker of spaceflight activity.
The 46 new satellites launched Wednesday brought the total number of Starlink spacecraft deployed to date to 3,208.
SpaceX’s Starlink 3-4 mission was the fourth straight launch from Vandenberg since July 10 to haul satellites into “Group 3” of the Starlink constellation. The 184 satellites launched on those four missions are enough to fill more than half of the slots in Group 3, which will eventually contain 348 satellites in polar orbit.
The Starlink 3-2 mission aims to deploy 46 internet satellites into polar orbit. Credit: Spaceflight Now
SpaceX is expected to take a pause from Group 3 launches for at least the next few months.
The next Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg is scheduled for late September carrying a tranche of small demonstration satellites for the U.S. military’s Space Development Agency, which is developing a constellation of missile tracking and data relay spacecraft.
SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 4, with a cluster of Starlink satellites heading for Group 4 in an orbit inclined 53.2 degrees to the equator.
NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket on pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA/Sam Lott
NASA will make a second attempt to launch the agency’s giant Space Launch System rocket Saturday on a delayed test flight to send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule on a flight around the moon and back, a major milestone in the agency’s ambitious Artemis program.
Grounded Monday by trouble cooling one of the rocket’s four shuttle-era engines to the required pre-start temperature, managers said Tuesday engineers have come up with a work-around and plan to start a fresh countdown at 4:07 p.m. EDT Thursday.
That will set the stage for blastoff on the Artemis 1 mission at 2:17 p.m. Saturday, one day later than NASA’s original backup launch date. As always, NASA will have to work around the weather, with forecasters predicting a 60 percent chance of stormy conditions during the rocket’s two-hour launch window.
Mike Sarafin, chairman of NASA’s mission management team, said the core stage fueling procedure will be adjusted in an attempt to improve cooling to all four RS-25 engines. In addition, fittings will be tightened around a fuel-line umbilical at the base of the rocket to improve sealing and prevent leaks like one that briefly occurred Monday.
“We agreed on what was called ‘option 1,’ which was to operationally change the (fuel) loading procedure and start our engine chilldown earlier,” Sarafin said. “We also agreed to do some work at the pad to address the leak that we saw at the hydrogen tail service mast umbilical.
“And we also agreed to move our launch date to Saturday. We are going to reconvene the Mission Management Team on Thursday to review our flight rationale and our overall readiness.”
The 322-foot-tall 5.75-million-pound SLS is the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA, generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff using four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines left over from the shuttle program and two Northrop Grumman solid rocket boosters attached to a Boeing-built core stage.
Accelerating to 70 mph — straight up — in just seven seconds, the the SRBs and the core stage will boost the Orion capsule, carrying instrumented test dummies and a suite of sensors and experiments, into an elliptical orbit. The rocket’s upper stage, provided by United Launch Alliance, then will propel the capsule out of Earth’s gravity and onto a trajectory to the moon.
After a close flyby, the capsule will whip around the moon and out into a distant orbit that will carry it farther from Earth than any human-rated spacecraft. Then, after another lunar flyby, the ship will head back to Earth for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of San Diego on October 11.
The goal of the Artemis 1 mission is to put the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft through their paces, including a high-speed, high-temperature re-entry, before launching four astronauts around the moon in late 2024. The first Artemis moon landing is planned for the 2025-26 timeframe.
Given the constantly changing positions of the Earth and moon, along with the rocket’s ability to reach the correct trajectory, NASA must launch the Artemis 1 mission within specific “windows.”
Complicating the picture, the battery used by the upper stage’s self-destruct system must be serviced after 25 days, and that can only be done back in NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building.
That means the Artemis 1 mission must get off the ground by Monday or the rocket will be hauled back to the VAB, delaying another launch attempt until late September at the earliest or, more likely, to October.
The SLS rocket is the key to the Artemis program and NASA managers and engineers want to make sure it works as planned before launching astronauts to the moon.
A full-duration eight-minute core stage engine test firing was carried out at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on March 18, 2021. The rocket then was shipped to the Kennedy Space Center for launch processing.
NASA carried out a dress-rehearsal countdown and fueling test on April 3, a key milestone needed to make sure the rocket, launch pad and ground systems work together as planned. But engineers ran into a series of mostly ground-system problems that prevented them from loading propellants,
Two more fueling attempts failed on April 4 and 14 due to a variety of unrelated problems. Engineers were finally able to fully load the core stage on June 20, but only after a leaking quick-disconnect fitting was isolated that prevented the flow of hydrogen coolant to the core stage engines — a requirement for an actual launch.
The quick-disconnect was repaired back in the Vehicle Assembly Building and the SLS rocket was rolled back out to pad 39B on August 16 to ready the vehicle for launch.
During Monday’s launch attempt, the repaired quick-disconnect appeared to work normally. With the core stage tanks filled and topped off, liquid oxygen and hydrogen began circulating through the engine plumbing to condition them to the ultra-low temperatures of the propellants.
But none of the engines reached the target temperature of -420 degrees Fahrenheit. Engines 1, 2 and 4 got to about -410 degrees while engine No. 3 only reached about -380 degrees. During troubleshooting, engineers diverted all the hydrogen coolant to engine 3 and it still did not reach the planned operating temperature.
John Honeycutt, manager of the SLS program at the Marshall Spaceflight Center, said engineers suspect a faulty sensor might be responsible for the readings from engine 3. Pressure measurements and other data indicate good cooling.
“The way the sensor is behaving, it doesn’t line up with the physics of the situation,” he said. “And so we will be looking at all the other data that we have to use it to make an informed decision whether or not we’ve got all the engines chilled down or not.”
By starting the chilldown procedure about 45 minutes earlier when the engines are near ambient temperatures, engineers believe they can manage to cool all four engines as needed.
A similar procedure was used during the rocket’s test firing last year at the Stennis Space Center. In that case, the engines were properly cooled and started normally for a full-duration “green run.”
“As of today, and based on the data that we’ve got, we think we can do something like what we did at the Stennis Space Center to put ourselves in a better position for launch,” said Honeycutt.
As Sarafin said, the team will review all the data Thursday before giving final clearance to proceed with a launch attempt.
“The team is in the middle of poring through the data and building the flight rationale,” Honeycutt said. “I don’t have that just yet, but I do expect us to be able to get there.”
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NASA hopes to try and launch Artemis-1 again on Saturday, Sep 3, following initial data reviews from Monday’s scrub, which occurred when one of the SLS rocket’s four RS-25 main engines did not get cold enough for a safe ignition (like a race car needing to warm-up). Engineers believe the issue is likely a bad […]
A NASA security helicopter flies near the Artemis 1 moon rocket on Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center during a launch attempt Monday morning. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
Engineers fueled the Space Launch System moon rocket for blastoff Monday on NASA’s long-overdue Artemis 1 test flight, but stormy weather, brief indications of a hydrogen leak, trouble cooling one of the four main engines and then a valve glitch forced managers to call off the countdown.
“The combination of not being able to get engine three chilled down and then the vent valve issue that they saw … caused us to pause today,” said mission manager Mike Sarafin. “The team was tired at the end of the day, and we just decided that it was best to knock it off and to reconvene tomorrow.”
Even if the technical problems could have been resolved, “we would have been no-go for weather at the beginning of the (launch) window due to precipitation,” he said, “and later in the window we would have been no-go for lightning.”
While it’s not yet known what will be needed to resolve the engine cooling issue and the vent valve problem, the team is preserving the option of making another launch try Friday, at 12:48 p.m. EDT, the next available opportunity.
An initial forecast calls for a 60 percent chance of violating flight safety rules due to clouds, electrical activity and flight through precipitation.
Even so, Sarafin said, “we’re gonna play all nine innings here, we’re not ready to give up yet.”
The launch scrub was a frustrating disappointment for more than 25,000 NASA workers, dignitaries and other guests gathered at the Kennedy Space Center, including Vice President Kamala Harris, to witness the historic maiden launch of the agency’s most powerful rocket.
It was equally disappointing for the hundreds of engineers and technicians who have labored for months to ready the giant moon rocket for takeoff. Instead, the countdown revealed a fresh problems for engineers to evaluate after exhaustive work to resolve problems that developed during four earlier fueling tests.
“We don’t launch until it’s right,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “I think it’s illustrative that this is a very complicated machine, a very complicated system, and all those things have to work. You don’t want to light the candle until it’s ready to go.”
NASA was taking no chances with the $4.1 billion rocket, the linchpin in its plans to return astronauts to the moon in the next three years as part of the agency’s Artemis program.
After repeated attempts to resolve the engine cooling issue were unsuccessful, Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson called off the countdown at 8:35 a.m. EDT, two minutes after the two-hour launch window opened at 8:33 a.m.
Based on the constantly changing positions of the Earth and moon, NASA managers only expected three chances to get the SLS off the ground — Monday, Friday and early next week — before the rocket would have to be hauled off the pad and back to the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building for servicing.
After that, launch likely would slip into late September or, more likely, October. But no decisions will be made until after engineers have time to review data and pinpoint what needs to be repaired or adjusted.
“Awww man, launch scrubs are a normal part of spaceflight, but I sure was excited for this one,” tweeted former astronaut Jack Fischer. “With a rocket this awesome you don’t want to take any chances. It’s been 50 years … what’s another wee bit of waiting if we’re writing history?”
The Artemis 1 test flight is intended to verify the rocket’s ability to propel Orion capsules into Earth orbit and then onto the moon. Engineers also will test the crew ship’s myriad systems in deep space and make sure its heat shield can protect returning astronauts from the 5,000-degree heat of re-entry.
NASA plans to follow the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission by launching four astronauts on a looping around-the-moon flight in 2024, setting the stage for the first astronaut landing in nearly 50 years when the first woman and the next man step onto the surface in the 2025-26 timeframe.
But first, NASA must prove the rocket and capsule will work as planned and that begins with the uncrewed Artemis 1 test flight.
The SLS rocket stands 322 feet tall, weighs 5.7 million pounds when loaded with propellant and will generate 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, 15 percent more than NASA’s legendary Saturn 5, the current record holder.
The countdown began Saturday and proceeded smoothly until late Sunday night when offshore storms with rain and lightning moved within about six miles of launch complex 39B, violating NASA safety rules.
Mike Sarafin, NASA’s Artemis 1 mission manager, participates in a press conference at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
After a 55-minute delay, the six-hour fueling process finally got underway at 1:14 a.m. as engineers, working by remote control, began pumping 730,000 gallons of supercold liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel into the SLS core stage, clearing the way for another 22,000 gallons to be pumped into the upper stage.
During a transition from “slow fill” to a 10 times faster rate, sensors detected higher-than-allowable concentrations of hydrogen in a housing around an 8-inch umbilical that delivers propellants to the base of the core stage. That indicated a leak in a quick-disconnect fitting.
After reverting back to slow fill and allowing temperatures to equalize across the plumbing, fast fill was restarted and this time around, there were no issues.
But then another issue surfaced that engineers already were concerned about.
When the core stage hydrogen tank was topped off, propellants were diverted to the four RS-25 engines at the base of the core stage to cool, or thermally condition, them to the ultra-low temperatures they’ll experience at the high flow rates needed for ignition.
A 4-inch quick-disconnect fitting in the cooling system leaked during a June 20 fueling test. Like the 8-inch valve before it, the fitting was repaired during another stint in the Vehicle Assembly building, but Monday was the first time it was again exposed to cryogenic hydrogen at minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit.
It did not leak this time around, but engine No. 3’s plumbing did not reach the desired temperature. That prompted additional troubleshooting, including attempts to increase pressure in the tank to boost the flow of hydrogen.
That’s when engineers ran into an unexpected problem: a vent valve at the top of the hydrogen tank did not operate as expected, showing signs of leakage. At that point, mission managers threw in the towel.
“We need the team to get rested and come back tomorrow and we’ll see what the data tells us,” Sarafin said.
NASA’s Mission Management Team planned to meet Tuesday to review the data and develop plans for what to do next.
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If you are like us, you probably would like to know more about the Artemis 1 Orion spacecraft that is heading to the Moon today. Better yet, perhaps you’d like to have an AR experience and sit in the spacecraft. Or at least be able to look at a 3D version of the Orion spacecraft. […]
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NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket on pad 39B. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight Now
Countdown clocks began ticking Saturday for the maiden launch of NASA new Space Launch System rocket Monday on a long-awaited mission to send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule around the moon and back.
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s first female launch director, called her team to their stations in Firing Room 1 at the Kennedy Space Center and began the carefully-scripted 46-hour 10-minute countdown at 10:23 a.m. EDT.
“At this time, we are not working any significant issues,” she told reporters in a pre-flight news conference. “So I’m happy to report that and everything is proceeding on schedule.”
Shortly after the briefing, lightning struck one of the three protective towers around the SLS rocket at launch pad 39B. The strike prompted a review of data to make sure no sensitive electrical systems were affected.
If all goes well, engineers working by remote control plan to start pumping 750,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel into the giant SLS rocket’s core stage at 12:18 a.m. EDT Monday, setting the stage for blastoff at 8:33 a.m., the opening of a two-hour window. Forecasters are predicting a 70 percent chance of good weather.
The unpiloted 42-day test flight of the $4.1 billion SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule is a major milestone in NASA’s push to return astronauts to the surface of the moon for long-term exploration and to test equipment and procedures needed for eventual multi-year flights to Mars.
“With the Artemis 1 launch on Monday, NASA is at a historic inflection point, poised to begin the most significant series of science and human exploration missions in over a generation,” said Bhavya Lal, NASA associate administrator for technology, policy and strategy.
“We are making sure that the agency’s architecture for human exploration is grounded in a long-term strategic vision, that of sustained U.S. presence on the moon, Mars and throughout the solar system.”
NASA astronauts and astronaut candidates pose for a picture with the Space Launch System moon rocket at the Kennedy Space Center. Credit: NASA/Josh Valcarcel
But mission manager Mike Sarafin cautioned “this is a test flight. We’re mindful that this is a purposeful stress test of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System rocket. It is a new creation, it is a new rocket and a new spacecraft to send humans to the moon on the very next flight.
“This is something that has not been done in over 50 years and it is incredibly difficult. We will learn a great deal from the Artemis 1 test flight. … We understand that there’s a lot of excitement about this, but the team is very focused.”
One question mark going into the countdown is the status of a 4-inch liquid hydrogen quick-disconnect fitting that leaked during a practice countdown and fueling test June 20.
The fitting was repaired after the rocket was hauled back to NASA’s assembly building. But hydrogen leaks typically don’t show up unless the equipment is exposed to cryogenic temperatures — in this case, minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit — and that won’t happen until around 3:30 a.m. Monday when fueling is well underway.
If a leak is detected that violates safety standards, launch will be scrubbed. But Blackwell-Thompson says she’s confident the fitting will work normally.
“You don’t really get the full test until you do it at cryogenic conditions,” she said in an interview. “We believe that we have done everything to correct this issue, and certainly on launch day, as part of our loading, we will know for certain.”
The primary goals of the Artemis 1 mission are to verify the giant SLS rocket’s performance, to put the Orion crew capsule through its paces and to bring it safely back to Earth, making sure the capsule’s 16.5-foot-wide heat shield can protect returning astronauts from the high-speed heat of re-entry.
An instrumented, spacesuited mannequin — “Moonikin Campos” — and two artificial female torsos will help scientists measure the radiation environment of deep space, along with the vibrations, sound levels, accelerations, temperatures and pressures in the crew cabin throughout the mission.
If the flight goes well, NASA will press ahead with plans to launch four real astronauts on a looping free-return trajectory around the moon in late 2024, followed by a mission to land two astronauts near the moon’s south pole as early as 2025.
That flight will depend in large part on continued funding from Congress, development of new spacesuits for the moonwalkers and SpaceX’s progress developing a moon lander based on the design of its futuristic Starship rocket, which has not yet flown to space.
NASA managers say they’re optimistic, but it’s not yet known how realistic the 2025 landing target might prove to be.
“We’re working as if it is. We have to, otherwise it ends up being an open-ended question that we never reach,” said astronaut Randy Bresnik, adding SpaceX is “working towards that pace as well.”
“And so that gives great hope that if we’re going to get there, we’ve got the right partner for this first mission. The suits and the Starship, the lunar lander, all go hand in hand. We can’t have one without the other. So we’ll get more clarity in the next few months.”
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This graphic from NASA illustrates the major events of the Artemis 1 launch sequence. Credit: NASA
Even using the most powerful rocket NASA’s ever built, getting the agency’s unpiloted Orion spacecraft to the moon for the Artemis 1 test flight won’t be easy. It will hinge on a complex series of precisely orchestrated deep space maneuvers.
Mission planners had to take into account the constantly changing positions of Earth and moon to ensure the Space Launch System rocket accurately delivers Orion to a moving point in low-Earth orbit for the critical “trans-lunar injection” — TLI — rocket firing that will begin the trip to the moon.
They had to design a trajectory sending Orion within a scant 60 miles of the moon’s surface for a flyby that will bend its path out toward the planned “distant retrograde orbit” — one that will carry the capsule farther from Earth than any other human-rated spacecraft.
The trajectory must minimize the amount of time the solar-powered Orion is in the shadow of the moon while setting up a final lunar flyby to precisely target the capsule’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean during daylight hours as Earth moves through space and rotates on its axis.
All of those factors played into defining a two-hour launch window that opens at 8:33 a.m. EDT Monday when, if all goes well, the 322-foot-tall Space Launch System rocket will blast off from pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center.
Generating 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, the SLS rocket will propel Orion, its service module and the booster’s upper stage into an initial orbit, one with a high point, or apogee, of about 1,100 miles and a low point, or perigee, of just 18 miles.
Ten minutes after separation from the SLS core stage but still attached to the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, or ICPS, the Orion capsule’s service module, provided by the European Space Agency, will deploy four steerable solar panels to begin recharging on-board batteries.
The ICPS’s single Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10B engine will fire for the first time when the spacecraft nears to high point of the orbit about 51 minutes after launch. The result of the “burn” will raise the low point of the orbit from 18 to about 115 miles.
The SLS’s two-hour lunar launch window is defined by a requirement for the ICPS to reach a point in space on the opposite side of Earth from the moon known as the antipode, where it can fire its engine to break out of Earth orbit and head for the moon.
That point is constantly moving as Earth rotates and moves along its orbit around the sun while the moon moves in its orbit around Earth. The Artemis 1 trajectory is designed so the rocket’s perigee syncs up as required with the antipode so an engine firing can send Orion to a point in space where the moon will be five days later.
At that moment, one hour and 36 minutes after launch, the ICPS’s RL10B engine will fire for 18 minutes, the longest burn ever attempted by that family of engines, increasing the spacecraft’s velocity to some 22,600 mph and effectively raising the high point of the orbit to the vicinity of the moon.
A half hour after the TLI engine firing, the Orion capsule will separate from the ICPS to fly on its own. From that point, the ICPS will continue toward the moon — deploying a dozen small scientific research satellites, called CubeSats, along the way — before thruster firings to head out into a “disposal” orbit around the sun.
The Artemis 1 mission profile will carry the Orion spacecraft into a distant retrograde orbit around the moon, flying at an average 43,000 miles (70,000 kilometers) from the lunar surface. The Orion spacecraft will return to Earth for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean at the end of the mission. Credit: NASA
Orion flight controllers, meanwhile, will test the orbital maneuvering system engine powering the capsule’s service module, carrying out four trajectory correction maneuvers. Those will set up a critical “outbound powered flyby” engine firing.
“That’s the big burn that will actually move Orion and send it toward the planned distant retrograde orbit (around the moon),” said lead Flight Director Rick LaBrode. “So when we do that burn and we go by the moon, we’re going to be about 60 miles off the surface. It’s going to be spectacular.”
The outbound powered flyby will occur over the back side of the moon when Orion is out of contact with mission control.
“So we’ll be praying and I’ll hold my breath,” LaBrode joked. “But (we’re) confident that all will go well.”
After a slingshot-like loop around the moon, another burn will put the craft in the planned distant retrograde orbit.
Cameras inside and out
Throughout the flight, cameras inside and outside Orion will document the view, beaming back selfies and shots of the spacecraft, moon and Earth, including planned views of Earthrise over the limb of the moon reminiscent of a famous shot from the Apollo 8 mission that came to symbolize the environmental movement.
All the while, flight controllers will be testing Orion’s systems and collecting a steady stream of engineering telemetry to document the spacecraft’s performance in the deep space environment. The service module will be closely monitored given the Artemis 1 mission will last twice as long as the module’s 21-day design certification.
Artist’s concept of the Orion spacecraft’s crew module and service module near the moon. Credit: Lockheed Martin
“We’re doing public affairs outreach where we maybe maneuver, do a selfie of Orion with the moon in the background or the or the Earth in the background,” LaBrode said. “We’re going to try and catch the Earthrise. That’s a spectacular image.”
On September 8, Orion will be farther from Earth than the record set by the Apollo 13 crew — 248,654 miles — as it flies through one-and-a-half laps around the moon in that distant orbit.
The long journey home
The trip home will begin on September 21 when the service module engine fires again to break out of the distant retrograde orbit and loop back toward the moon. Three days later, thanks to the changing geometry of Earth, moon and spacecraft, Orion will reach its maximum distance from Earth at 280,000 miles.
On October 3, the service module engine will fire again as Orion makes another lunar flyby, this one at an altitude of about 500 miles. The “return powered flyby” burn will ensure Orion re-enters Earth’s atmosphere at the precise point needed to enable a daylight Pacific Ocean splashdown 50 miles or so west of San Diego.
If all goes according to plan, Orion will get back to Earth on October 10. Twenty minutes before atmospheric entry, the capsule will separate from its no-longer-needed service module and orient itself so its 16.5-foot-wide heat shield is facing the direction of travel.
The capsule then will slam into the top of the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of 400,000 feet while moving at nearly 25,000 mph. The spacecraft will dip into the atmosphere to slow down, then pop back up like a rock skipping across a lake. It will enter a second time moments later, enduring temperatures of up to 5,000 degrees as atmospheric friction slows the craft to a velocity of around 300 mph.
“We’re actually doing what’s called a skip entry profile,” entry Flight Director Judd Frieling explained. “So we’ll hit entry interface at 400,000 feet and then we’ll immediately start to control the lift vector of the capsule such that we dip a little bit in the atmosphere and then we come back up a bit and then back in. Once we get out of that second period, we will continue our journey towards our splashdown site.”
Orion will jettison a parachute bay cover at an altitude of 35,000 feet using 3 small chutes that will, in turn, pull out two 23-foot-wide drogue parachutes that will stabilize the spacecraft and help it slow down to about 130 mph.
Three 11-foot-wide pilot chutes then will deploy, pulling out the capsule’s three 116-foot-wide main parachutes at an altitude of about 6,800 feet. The mains will slow the descent to a relatively gentle 17 mph for splashdown.
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Orion spacecraft during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Credit: NASA
Expected mission duration at splashdown: 42 days, 3 hours and 20 minutes.
“Once we’ve splashed down, we’ll leave the vehicle powered for about two hours,” Frieling said. “We’re going to do some testing there, thermal testing, to make sure that we have adequate cooling for astronauts when we do eventually have them on board and are waiting to be picked up by the recovery crews.
“And then, after that two-hour period, we will power down the vehicle and we’ll hand (it over) to the recovery team that’s there on a Navy boat.”
A joint Navy-NASA recovery team based on the USS Portland will collect the main and drogue chutes before attaching cables and towing Orion into the ship’s well deck, a sort of enclosed dry dock that can be flooded or pumped dry.
Orion will be towed into the flooded chamber and positioned above a mounting fixture. As water is pumped out, the capsule will settle onto the fixture for shipment back to U.S. Naval Base San Diego and, from there, to the Kennedy Space Center for a detailed inspection.
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NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket stands on Launch Complex 39B, behind the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight Now
Spaceflight Now took an aerial tour around the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the days before the scheduled launch of NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket. These images captured by Walter Scriptunas II show the the powerful moon rocket on its launch pad, plus SpaceX’s ongoing work to ready the spaceport for the huge commercial Starship rocket.
The 322-foot-tall (98-meter) Space Launch System moon rocket is standing on pad 39B at Kennedy awaiting liftoff on Artemis 1, carrying an unpiloted Orion crew capsule on a mission to orbit the moon and return to Earth. The test flight will pave the way for future astronaut flights to the moon.
Less than two miles to the south of pad 39B, SpaceX has leased Launch Complex 39A from NASA to support launches of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, including crew missions to the International Space Station. SpaceX is now building a launch tower for its next-generation Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket, a fully reusable vehicle that will eclipse even the giant SLS moon rocket in scale.
NASA and SpaceX envision the heavy-lift rockets — the two most powerful launchers ever built in the United States — to be based at neighboring launch pads through the coming decade. The Super Heavy and Starship rocket will combine to reach a height of nearly 400 feet (120 meters).
NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket, in the foreground at pad 39B, with SpaceX’s ongoing work to prepare pad 39A, in the background, for the Starship program. United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 launch pad — Space Launch Complex 41 — is seen in the distance. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight Now
The aerial tour also caught glimpse of SpaceX’s work to build a Starship factory near the company’s Hangar X facility a few miles southwest of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy. Teams are currently outfitting articulating arms and two additional sections that will top off the Starship launch pad tower at Launch Complex 39A.
SpaceX began stacking the nine sections of the Starship launch pad gantry structure in June, a big step in the company’s construction of a second Starship base in Florida after one already built in South Texas.
The tower is already taller than the existing fixed service structure at pad 39A left over from the space shuttle program, and currently used to support Falcon 9 crew launches. Two more segments will be installed in the coming weeks to complete the structural assembly of the tower.
There’s more work to do after that, with completion of the launch mount, the addition of moveable arms to the tower, and work on other ground support infrastructure needed for the Starship program.
The photos also show Blue Origin’s rocket factory just outside the gates of the space center, and the rocket garden display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
An aerial photo of SpaceX’s facility at Roberts Road at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Hangar X Falcon 9 rocket refurbishment facility is in the background, and work to prepare for a Starship factory and operations center is ongoing in the foreground. Two more segments for the Starship launch pad tower are visible as they are readied for transport to pad 39A for stacking. Elements of the “chopstick” arms that will be added to to the tower are also seen in this picture. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowAn aerial photo of SpaceX’s facility at Roberts Road at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Two more segments for the Starship launch pad tower are visible in the background (in gray) as they are readied for transport to pad 39A for stacking. Elements of the black “chopstick” arms that will be added to to the tower are also seen in this picture. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowA wide-angle view of the Kennedy Space Center, with the Vehicle Assembly Building and pads 39A and 39B in the background along the coast. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowLaunch Complex 39A, where SpaceX launches Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets from the Apollo-era pad at left. On the right, SpaceX is constructing a more than 450-foot-tall tower to support future Starship missions. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowNASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket on pad 39B. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowNASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket on pad 39B. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowNASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket on pad 39B. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowA SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands on Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station — just to the right of the Vehicle Assembly Building — in preparation for a Starlink satellite mission. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowNASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket on pad 39B. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowNASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket stands in the distance, behind the Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowA space shuttle orbiter mock-up, the air traffic control tower at the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch and Landing Facility, and the Artemis 1 moon rocket. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowThe Launch and Landing Facility — formerly the Shuttle Landing Facility — runway at the Kennedy Space Center. This three-mile-long landing strip was the end point for space shuttle missions. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowSpaceX’s Hangar X facility, used to refurbish and prepare Falcon 9 rocket components, such as stages and payload fairings. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowBlue Origin’s factory for the New Glenn rocket. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowBlue Origin’s factory for the New Glenn rocket, with the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in the background. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowThe Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, where the space shuttle Atlantis is on public display. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight NowThe rocket garden at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. The blue rocket at left is the final unflown United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket. The rocket displayed horizontal is a Saturn 1B rocket left over from the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz programs. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II / Spaceflight Now
[…] Artemis I enters formal countdown operations ahead of Monday morning’s historic maiden voyage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, SpaceX looks set to wrap up August on a personal-best-tying six missions, as the Hawthorne, […]
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NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket stands on pad 39B. Credit: United Launch Alliance
Five decades after the final flight of NASA’s legendary Saturn 5 moon rocket, the U.S. space agency is poised to launch its most powerful rocket yet Monday for a critical, long-overdue test flight, sending an unpiloted Orion crew capsule on a 42-day voyage around the moon.
Running years behind schedule and billions over budget, the first Space Launch System — SLS — rocket is finally ready for blastoff from pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center at 8:33 a.m. EDT Monday, the opening of a two-hour window. Forecasters are predicting a 70% chance of good weather.
Backup launch opportunities are available September 2 and 5 based on the planned trajectory and the ever-changing positions of the Earth and moon. After that, the flight likely would slip into October.
Cobbled together from left-over space shuttle components, a new core stage and a modified upper stage borrowed from another rocket, the SLS rocket stands 322 feet tall and will weigh 5.75 million pounds after 750,000 gallons of supercold liquid oxygen and hydrogen rocket fuel are pumped aboard early Monday. (More details in NASA’s SLS Reference Guide.)
At liftoff, the SLS will generate a ground-shaking 8.8 million pounds of thrust from four shuttle-era hydrogen-fueled engines and twin solid rocket boosters packed with 25% more propellant than their shuttle predecessors, providing a breathtaking spectacle for thousands of spaceport workers, area residents and tourists.
“I’m afraid that people think it’s routine,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told CBS News. “But when those candles light off, it’s anything but routine. It is high-wire act all the way up. … This is a big deal. And it is beautiful. And it is a monster! The size just overwhelms you.”
This diagram illustrates the major elements of the Space Launch System moon rocket. Credit: NASA
The primary goal of the Artemis 1 mission is to send Orion to orbit around the moon and in the process, set up a 25,000-mph plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere on October 10. The top priority of the mission is to make sure the capsule’s 16.5-foot-wide heat shield can protect returning astronauts from the 5,000-degree inferno of re-entry on a future flight.
“This is a test flight. It’s not without risk,” Bob Cabana, a former shuttle commander and now a NASA associate administrator, said of the first SLS flight. “We have analyzed the risk as best we can and we’ve mitigated it as best we can. But we are stressing Orion beyond what it was actually designed for in preparation for sending it to the moon with a crew.
“And we want to make sure it works absolutely perfectly when we do that and that we understand all the risks,” he said. “We’re going to learn a lot from this test flight.”
Returning Americans to the moon
If the unpiloted Artemis 1 test flight goes well, NASA plans to launch four astronauts atop the second SLS rocket for an around-the-moon shakedown flight in 2024 — Artemis 2 — before the first woman and the first person of color touch down near the moon’s south pole in 2025 or 2026.
After that, NASA intends to launch a steady stream of Artemis moon missions, sending astronauts to the south polar region once every year or so for research and to search for ice deposits in permanently shadowed craters, a resource future crews could convert into rocket fuel, air and water.
But first, Artemis astronauts and spacecraft have to get there. And that requires a rocket capable of boosting the men, women and machines out of Earth’s gravitational clutches and across the 240,000-mile gulf to the moon with sufficient fuel, supplies and equipment to mount a meaningful mission and get the crew safely home when it’s over.
“She is an incredible rocket,” Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s first female launch director, told CBS News. “She brings a whole new capability to our nation’s space program, a new heavy lift capability for deep space exploration.
“It’s going to change the way in which we explore. It’s going to return our nation to the moon, and it is going to pave the way for our next steps as we prepare to go someplace like Mars, and even destinations beyond.”
Artist’s illustration of the Space Launch System’s core stage and two solid rocket boosters. Credit: NASA
The initial 322-foot SLS “block 1” version can lift 95 tons of payload and propellant to low-Earth orbit and can send 27 tons on to the moon. It is the only rocket in the world that can boost that much material to the moon in a single flight and it is the only heavy lifter that is already “human rated.”
Future block 1B and 2 variants, the former using a more powerful four-engine Exploration Upper Stage and the latter using both the EUS and more powerful boosters, will stand more than 350 feet tall and be capable of lifting between 38 and 47 tons of payload to the moon.
A mega rocket from SpaceX
But the SLS is not the only mega rocket currently in development. SpaceX is building an even more ambitious rocket, one that dwarfs the SLS and anything else on the drawing board: a fully reusable two-stage monster known as the Super Heavy-Starship.
The Super Heavy first stage will generate a record 16 million pounds of thrust from 33 methane-burning Raptor engines while the Starship upper stage, equipped with six Raptors, life support systems and crew accommodations, is designed to carry passengers and cargo to the moon and beyond on NASA-sponsored flights or purely commercial ventures.
SpaceX says the 394-foot-tall 30-foot-wide rocket will be able to deliver 100 tons or more to the moon, twice the capability of even the SLS Block 2. But the Super Heavy-Starship can’t do it in a single flight. Multiple launches of Starship tankers will be required to refuel moon-bound ships before they leave Earth orbit and a major delay or launch mishap could have significant consequences.
A full-stacked Starship rocket on SpaceX’s launch pad in South Texas. Credit: SpaceX
No country or company has ever carried out orbital refueling on such a massive scale and it’s a capability SpaceX has yet to demonstrate.
But Musk is confident the system will work. SpaceX already is designing a Starship variant to serve as NASA’s initial Artemis moon lander under a $2.9 billion contract, and the ability to refuel the ship in Earth orbit will be required.
“Orion is built as a deep space exploration vehicle, SLS is meant to take it there. That’s what SLS does,” said Jim Free, NASA’s director of exploration systems. “Obviously, SpaceX is a partner (and) we buy into what SpaceX is trying to do. But right now, they don’t have the capability that SLS does.”
The SpaceX Super Heavy-Starship has one major advantage over the government-managed, owned and operated SLS: cost. While SpaceX does not reveal development costs, the Super Heavy-Starship is expected to be orders of magnitude less expensive than the SLS.
A $4.1 billion launch
According to NASA’s Inspector General, the U.S. space agency “is projected to spend $93 billion on the Artemis (moon program) up to FY 2025.”
“We also project the current production and operations cost of a single SLS/Orion system at $4.1 billion per launch for Artemis 1 through 4, although the Agency’s ongoing initiatives aimed at increasing affordability seek to reduce that cost.”
Among the causes listed as contributing to the SLS’s astronomical price tag: the use of sole-source, cost-plus contracts “and the fact that except for the Orion capsule, its subsystems and the supporting launch facilities, all components are expendable and ‘single use’ unlike emerging commercial space flight systems.”
In stark contrast to SpaceX’s commitment to fully reusable rockets, everything but the Orion crew capsule is discarded after a single use. As SpaceX founder Musk likes to point out, that’s like flying a 747 jumbo jet from New York to Los Angeles and then throwing the airplane away.
“That is a concern,” Paul Martin, the NASA inspector general, said in an interview with CBS News. “This is an expendable, single-use system unlike some of the launch systems that are out there in the commercial side of the house, where there are multiple uses. This is a single-use system. And so the $4.1 billion per flight … concerns us enough that in our reports, we said we see that as unsustainable.”
Artist’s illustration of an Orion spacecraft with the upper stage of its Space Launch System rocket firing during a trans-lunar injection burn. Credit: NASA
But the SLS has one clear near-term advantage: flight-tested components. When it approved the SLS project at the end of the space shuttle program, Congress required NASA to use available hardware if possible.
The SLS Block 1 uses modified shuttle-heritage main engines and a Northrop Grumman booster system that is already human rated — the Artemis 1 engines have flown a combined 25 shuttle flights — along with a Boeing-designed upper stage that’s used with United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 rocket.
Even the Orion’s European Space Agency-supplied service module, built by Airbus, has flight heritage. It’s main thruster is a repurposed space shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System engine, built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, that flew 19 times between 1984 and 2002.
And the SLS is ready to go.
As for the high cost, Marcia Smith, a Washington-based space analyst, said in an email exchange that “money isn’t always the most important factor. For SLS, preserving jobs, not just jobs per se, but high-tech jobs in a sector important for national security, is a strong motivation.”
“If, as a nation, it is critical to lead the world in space exploration, do you want to put all of your eggs in the billionaire space enthusiast basket? Bet it all on people who could change their minds and walk away or suffer illness or worse? They are single point failures.”
If the SLS suffers a catastrophic failure, “the story could change,” she added. “But even then I’m not sure. Not everyone is convinced that the private sector is reliable enough to bet the nation’s space leadership on public-private partnerships.”
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Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Starlink 4-23 mission will launch SpaceX’s next batch of 54 Starlink broadband satellites. Follow us on Twitter.
SFN Live
SpaceX is ready to launch another 54 Starlink internet satellites Saturday night from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9 rocket, days after SpaceX and T-Mobile unveiled plans to use a new generation of Starlink spacecraft to provide ubiquitous connectivity to existing cell phones.
Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is set for 10:22:30 p.m. EDT Saturday (0222:30 GMT Sunday) to kick off SpaceX’s 38th launch of the year.
Fifteen minutes later, the Falcon 9’s upper stage will release a stack of Starlink internet satellites into an orbit ranging in altitude between 144 miles and 208 miles (232-by-336 kilometers). The launcher will target an orbital inclination of 53.2 degrees to the equator.
Weather conditions could be iffy for launch Saturday night, with a 70% probability of bad weather for the launch opportunity at 10:22 p.m. SpaceX has a backup launch opportunity less than 90 minutes later, when the threat of lightning from evening thunderstorms should have subsided. There’s a 40% chance of bad weather during the backup launch opportunity Saturday night.
The launch Saturday night, known as Starlink 4-23, will carry 54 Starlink payloads, one more than SpaceX’s recent missions to the same orbit. SpaceX has experimented with engine throttle settings and another minor upgrades to stretch the Falcon 9’s lift capability.
The 53 satellites on recent Starlink flights maximized the rocket’s payload performance, representing the heaviest payload ever launched on a Falcon 9.
The addition of one more satellite — each Starlink craft weighs more than a quarter-ton — may suggest SpaceX has slightly improved the capacity of the Falcon 9’s payload envelope, and the satellites on Saturday night’s could add up to the heaviest cargo ever lofted on a SpaceX mission.
The launch of the Starlink 4-23 mission comes about 34 hours before NASA is scheduled to launch the giant Artemis 1 moon rocket from nearby Kennedy Space Center. The Space Launch System rocket is standing on pad 39B at Kennedy, about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of the Falcon 9’s launch site at pad 40.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands on Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ahead of liftoff with the Starlink 4-23 mission. Credit: Stephen Clark / Spaceflight Now
SpaceX’s latest Starlink launch also comes two days after the company announced a deal with T-Mobile to use the next generation of Starlink satellites to link up directly with cell phones. The second-generation Starlink satellites are much larger than the current design, and will launch on SpaceX’s new huge Starship rocket currently in development.
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, joined T-Mobile chief executive Mike Sievert for the announcement at SpaceX’s Starship launch base in South Texas.
The new Starlink satellite design, called Starlink V2, measures about 23 feet (7 meters) across. It will host similar Ku-band, Ka-band, and laser communications antennas flying on the current generation of Starlink satellites, but will add a deployable cell spectrum antenna measuring roughly 270 square feet (25 square meters), Musk said.
That large antenna will have the sensitivity to receive faint signals from existing cell phones.
“It’s a lot like putting a cellular tower in the sky, just a lot harder, and that’s why we’re here with the world experts at SpaceX because we’re using a piece of spectrum that your phone already knows … how to connect to,” Sievert said. “In fact, the vast majority of phones out there, our aspiration is for them to work right out of the gate with this.”
According to Musk, the Starlink V2 network will beam about 2 to 4 megabits of bandwidth to be shared among users within a certain region, or cell zone. That’s enough to enable texting, images, voice calls, and in some cases, video streaming, Musk said.
So far, SpaceX has focused on residential customers for the Starlink network, with a phased array antenna pointing skyward make a radio connecting with satellites passing overhead. SpaceX recently received regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to provide Starlink service through antenna terminals mounted on cars, RVs, ships, and airplanes.
Now SpaceX is moving into market to support cell phone services.
“This won’t have the kind of bandwidth that a Starlink terminal will have,” Musk said.
But it could eventually eliminate dead zones in cellular connectivity. “This is quite a difficult technical challenge, but we have it working in the lab and we’re confident this will work in the field,” Musk said. “It’s actually quite a lot of extra hardware on the satellite, and it’s also a lot of software.”
Sievert touted the importance of cell phone-to-satellite connectivity for public safety, emergency responders, and people who live in or are traveling through rural areas without traditional cell phone service. He said it will initially be rolled out in the continental United States, Hawaii, large swaths of Alaska, Puerto Rico, and U.S. territorial waters, and will be available at no additional charge on T-Mobile’s most popular cell phone plans.
SpaceX and T-Mobile want to have the Starlink V2 system up and running by the end of 2023 to begin beta testing. The Starship launch vehicle SpaceX wants to use for launches of Starlink V2 satellites has not yet flown into orbit.
Musk said SpaceX is looking at an “interim solution” to develop a smaller version of the Starlink V2 satellite that can fit on a Falcon 9 rocket “if the Starship program is delayed longer than expected.” The baseline Starlink V2 design to is large for a Falcon 9 launch.
With the Starlink 4-23 mission Saturday night, SpaceX will have launched 3,162 Starlink internet satellites, including prototypes and test units no longer in service. The launch Saturday will be the 57th SpaceX mission primarily dedicated to hauling Starlink internet satellites into orbit.
Stationed inside a launch control center just south of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, SpaceX’s launch team will begin loading super-chilled, densified kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 vehicle at T-minus 35 minutes.
Helium pressurant will also flow into the rocket in the last half-hour of the countdown. In the final seven minutes before liftoff, the Falcon 9’s Merlin main engines will be thermally conditioned for flight through a procedure known as “chilldown.” The Falcon 9’s guidance and range safety systems will also be configured for launch.
After liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket will vector its 1.7 million pounds of thrust — produced by nine Merlin engines — to steer northeast over the Atlantic Ocean.
The rocket will exceed the speed of sound in about one minute, then shut down its nine main engines two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. The booster stage will release from the Falcon 9’s upper stage, then fire pulses from cold gas control thrusters and extended titanium grid fins to help steer the vehicle back into the atmosphere.
Two braking burns slowed the rocket for landing on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” around 400 miles (650 kilometers) downrange approximately eight-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.
Credit: Spaceflight Now
The first stage for Saturday’s launch is designated B1069 in SpaceX’s inventory. The booster will make its second flight to space, after sustaining damage during recovery on a drone ship Dec. 21 following its first mission, which sent a Dragon cargo ship toward the International Space Station.
The rough recovery damaged the rocket’s engines and landing legs, causing the rocket to tilt on its return aboard the drone ship to Port Canaveral. The damage forced SpaceX and NASA to switch to a backup Falcon 9 booster for the launch of four astronauts to the space station in April. That launch was originally supposed to use B1069, which has been refurbished with new engines and other components.
The Falcon 9’s reusable payload fairing will jettison durning the second stage burn. A recovery ship is also on station in the Atlantic to retrieve the two halves of the nose cone after they splash down under parachutes.
Landing of the first stage on Tuesday’s mission will occur moments after the Falcon 9’s second stage engine cuts off to deliver the Starlink satellites into orbit. Separation of the 54 spacecraft, built by SpaceX in Redmond, Washington, from the Falcon 9 rocket is expected at T+plus 15 minutes, 21 seconds.
Retention rods will release from the Starlink payload stack, allowing the flat-packed satellites to fly free from the Falcon 9’s upper stage in orbit. The 54 spacecraft will unfurl solar arrays and run through automated activation steps, then use krypton-fueled ion engines to maneuver into their operational orbit.
The Falcon 9’s guidance computer aims deploy the satellites into an elliptical orbit at an inclination of 53.2 degrees to the equator. The satellites will use on-board propulsion to do the rest of the work to reach a circular orbit 335 miles (540 kilometers) above Earth.
The Starlink satellites will fly in one of five orbital “shells” at different inclinations for SpaceX’s global internet network. After reaching their operational orbit, the satellites will enter commercial service and begin beaming broadband signals to consumers, who can purchase Starlink service and connect to the network with a SpaceX-supplied ground terminal.
ROCKET: Falcon 9 (B1069.2)
PAYLOAD: 54 Starlink satellites (Starlink 4-23)
LAUNCH SITE: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
LAUNCH DATE: Aug. 27, 2022
LAUNCH TIME: 10:22:30 p.m. EDT (0222:30 GMT)
WEATHER FORECAST: 30% chance of acceptable weather for first opportunity; 60% chance of acceptable weather for second opportunity; Low risk of upper level winds; Low risk of unfavorable conditions for booster recovery
BOOSTER RECOVERY: “A Shortfall of Gravitas” drone ship east of Charleston, South Carolina
LAUNCH AZIMUTH: Northeast
TARGET ORBIT: 144 miles by 208 miles (232 kilometers by 336 kilometers), 53.2 degrees inclination
LAUNCH TIMELINE:
T+00:00: Liftoff
T+01:12: Maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q)
T+02:28: First stage main engine cutoff (MECO)
T+02:32: Stage separation
T+02:38: Second stage engine ignition
T+02:43: Fairing jettison
T+06:46: First stage entry burn ignition (three engines)
T+07:07: First stage entry burn cutoff
T+08:28: First stage landing burn ignition (one engine)
T+08:40: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 1)
T+08:49: First stage landing
T+15:21: Starlink satellite separation
MISSION STATS:
172nd launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010
180th launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006
2nd launch of Falcon 9 booster B1069
148th Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast
95th Falcon 9 launch from pad 40
150th launch overall from pad 40
114th flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster
57th dedicated Falcon 9 launch with Starlink satellites
38th Falcon 9 launch of 2022
38th launch by SpaceX in 2022
37th orbital launch attempt based out of Cape Canaveral in 2022
