Aviation Week (5/11) reports that a “United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan-Centaur rocket was rolled out to its launchpad on May 11 for a final series of tests ahead of its debut launch, targeted for this summer.” Space News reports ULA said on Thursday that the “Vulcan is in position atop SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to undergo a full launch day rehearsal tomorrow and flight readiness firing test of its main engines planned for next week.” ULA CEO Tory Bruno tweeted on Wednesday that the “Vulcan was returning to tanking tests although the investigation of a Centaur upper-stage testing anomaly that occurred on March 29 has not yet been completed.” Bruno said that “ULA plans to livestream the flight-readiness test firing of the BE-4 main engines. The test fire is expected to last about six seconds, he said. ‘A short burn, but a very long time to be on the pad.’”
Full Story (Aviation Week); More Info (Space News)
Tag: launch
Rocket Lab Launches NASA Hurricane Hunter Satellites
SPACE reports that the first two satellites “in NASA’s new hurricane-hunting constellation have taken to the skies.” The two cubesats, the “founding members of the agency’s TROPICS network, launched today (May 7) atop a Rocket Lab Electron rocket, which lifted off from the company’s New Zealand site at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 GMT and 1 p.m. on May 8 local New Zealand time).” The TROPICS constellation (short for “Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats”) “will consist of four cubesats in low Earth orbit.” Rocket Lab will “launch the other two satellites about two weeks from now, if all goes according to plan.”
Full Story (SPACE); Watch launch (Rocket Lab’s YouTube channel).
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Lifts Off Following Scrubbed Mission
UPI reports that SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy rocket on Sunday night from Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A, loaded with a payload of competitor ViaSat-3 Americas broadband Internet satellite, as well as satellites by Astranis and Gravity Space. The mission “was scheduled to launch Friday evening but the mission was aborted with less than a minute left in the countdown.” Unlike most SpaceX missions, neither the side boosters “nor the core of the Falcon Heavy rocket will be recovered as ‘a lot of extra performance’ was required to deliver ViaSat-3’s 13,000-pound satellite into geostationary orbit above the Earth, Atticus Vadera, propulsion engineer with SpaceX, said during the live broadcast.” ViaSat-3 Americas satellite “is part of its network that seeks to provide satellite Internet the world over and is a competitor to SpaceX’s own Starlink Internet satellite constellation.”
Full Story (UPI)
Video
ViaSat-3 Americas Mission
On Sunday, April 30 at 8:26 p.m. ET, a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launched the ViaSat-3 Americas mission from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
SpaceX Starship Explosion Sets Off FAA Investigation, Assessment of Particulate Matter Spread
CNBC reports that as SpaceX faces a standard practice FAA grounding of its “Starship Super Heavy launch program pending results of a ‘mishap investigation’” over the explosion of its vehicle last week, researchers also “are scrambling to assess the impact of the explosion on local communities, their health, habitat and wildlife including endangered species.” The primary issue “is the large amount of sand- and ash-like particulate matter and heavier debris kicked up by the launch. The particulate emissions spread far beyond the expected debris field,” which SpaceX “did not accurately predict.”
Full Story (CNBC)
ULA Expects Vulcan Launch in the Summer, at Earliest
Gizmodo reports United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno tweeted that company’s Vulcan rocket’s earliest estimated launch date would be “June/July.” ULA previously planned a May 4 inaugural flight, but in late March a spark triggered a fireball during testing of a Vulcan upper stage at the test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The Vulcan’s first launch “is set to deliver Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, which, on behalf of NASA, will attempt to deliver 11 payloads to the surface of the Moon.”
Full Story (Gizmodo)
SpaceX Launches Upgraded Starlink Satellites
Florida Today reports that SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday morning from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying more Starlink satellites. The flight was Starlink’s 80th dedicated mission since first launching in 2019. Spaceflight Now reports that the rocket carried 21 Starlink V2 Mini satellites, which have “improved phased array antennas with four times the communications capacity of earlier generations of Starlink satellites.”
Full Story (Florida Today); More Info (Spaceflight Now)
Video
Starlink Mission
On Wednesday, April 19 at 10:31 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 21 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
SpaceX Launches Transporter 7 Rideshare Mission
Space News reported that SpaceX launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California a Falcon 9 on the Transporter-7 mission, carrying more than 50 satellites. Its largest payload was “the 800-kilogram IMECE imaging satellite built by Turkish research institute Tübitak Uzay.” Spaceflight Now reported the payload included “CubeSats, microsatellites, hosted payloads, and orbital transfer vehicles.”
Full Story (Space News); More Info (Spaceflight Now)
Video
Transporter-7 Mission
SpaceX launched Transporter-7, the company’s seventh dedicated smallsat rideshare program mission, atop a Falcon 9, Friday, April 14 at 11:48 p.m. PT, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
SpaceX Plans Starship Launch as Early as Monday
The Orlando Sentinel reports that SpaceX doesn’t plan a launch pad run-through for its Starship and Super Heavy rocket, which has a target date of April 17 for its suborbital test launch from Boca Chica, Texas, although the company has yet to receive FAA approval. Under the flight plan, the booster will launch east over the Gulf of Mexico, separate, and make a water, while “Starship will then progress on a suborbital path around more than 2/3 of the planet before also attempting a water landing near Hawaii.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel)
SpaceX Launches NASA’s TEMPO from Cape Canaveral
Florida Today reports that SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral early on Friday morning “carrying a communications satellite and hosted NASA payload – a roughly $200 million pollution-detecting mission – to orbit high above Earth.” The payload for Friday’s launch “was Intelsat 40e, a commercial communications satellite owned by Luxembourg operator Intelsat.” Upon activation, the satellite will “deliver high-speed internet to private airplanes, vehicles, and mobile devices.” Before that happens, “the satellite will go through checkouts before becoming operational at its final location in geostationary orbit high above North America where its orbit will match Earth’s rotation, allowing it to continuously service a specific part of the planet.”
Full Story (Florida Today)
Video
Intelsat IS-40e Mission
On Friday, April 7 at 12:30 a.m. ET, a Falcon 9 launched the Intelsat IS-40e mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
(SpaceX; YouTube)
SpaceX Scrubs SDA Satellite Batch Launch
Aviation Week reports that SpaceX “scrubbed the launch of the Space Development Agency’s first official batch of satellites March 30, just prior to its scheduled 7:29 a.m. PDT launch from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.”
Full Story (Aviation Week)
Video
Watch Launch Live
SpaceX is targeting no earlier than Saturday, April 1 for a Falcon 9 launch of the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 0 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. .
(SpaceX; YouTube)