Iridium Next Flight 3 (x10) - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E - 09.10.2017, 12:37 UTC

Автор tnt22, 27.07.2017 16:18:57

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Georgea

#160
ЦитироватьMartin Alekseevich пишет:
Не по теме, но все же выскажусь. Даже специально ради этого зарегистрировался.
В последнее время абсолютно невозможно читать некоторые темы форума, которые из-за неугомонного флудераста tnt22, превращаются просто в помойку.
По-моему, в темах вроде этой tnt22 постит абсолютно по делу и очень полезно.

(P.S. Я слоу, да.)

tnt22

НОРАД зарегистрировал 8 из 10-ти объектов запуска (IDs 42955..42957, 42959, 42961..42964, / 2017-061 A..C, E, G..K)
 

tnt22

http://spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-iridium-next-flight-3/falcon-9-launches-third-iridium-satellite-batch/
ЦитироватьFalcon 9 Delivers 3rd Iridium-NEXT Satellite Batch, 1st Stage Masters Nighttime Drone Ship Landing
October 9, 2017

Continuing to move at a brisk pace through launch manifests on both coasts of the United States, SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Monday, thundering off fr om California's Vandenberg Air Force Base before sunrise to dispatch the third group of Iridium-NEXT communications satellites into orbit. The early-morning blastoff came just over 48 hours before the planned East Coast launch of a Falcon 9 tasked with deploying the SES 11 broadcasting satellite.
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Photo: SpaceX

Liftoff from SLC-4E occurred at 12:37 UTC, 5:37 a.m. local time and Falcon 9 completed a flawless orbital delivery taking over 70 minutes to complete while the first stage's round-trip time from the edge of space was only a mere 7.5 minutes, succeeding in a powered landing on SpaceX's 'Just Read The Instructions' Drone Ship.

The factory-new Falcon 9 Block 4 rocket was tasked with lofting a total payload upmass of 9,600 Kilograms into a 625-Kilometer orbit, requiring a two-burn profile to ferry the ten Iridium-NEXT satellites to their planned destination in space. Falcon 9 fired its nine first stage engines for 144 seconds before the two stages parted ways with Stage 1 making a backflip and re-lighting its engines to maneuver to the Drone Ship and the MVac-powered second stage heading off into orbit with an initial burn of six and a half minutes.


Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Employing the well-established three-burn return profile, the 47-meter tall booster managed to pin-point the JRTI Drone Ship some 244 Kilometers south of the Vandenberg launch site, touching down under the power of its center engine seven and a half minutes after liftoff. Booster #1041, returning in a comparatively benign re-entry environment, is a prime candidate for a re-use mission in the not-too-distant future.

Out to earn the money on Monday was the second stage, coasting for half a lap around the planet after reaching orbit and re-starting its engine to circularize the orbit ahead of dispatching the ten Iridium-NEXT satellites in a one-by-one fashion. Checking off its third mission in support of Iridium-NEXT, SpaceX is set for another five Iridium deployment flights to lift a total of 75 satellites into orbit to replace the entire heritage system in what is considered the largest satellite constellation upgrade in history.


Iridium 3 Payload Stack – Photo: Iridium Communications

Monday's launch marked the 42nd flight of the Falcon 9 family, the 22nd in the Full Thrust configuration and the third of a full Block 4 vehicle. It was the 14th success of the year for SpaceX, continuing to push the company's record for most missions conducted in a calendar year. The successful landing of the first stage brought SpaceX's overall record to 17 successful recoveries out of 22 tries, 9/14 for ocean-based recoveries; it was the fourth successful recovery in the Pacific Ocean and the 13th successful booster landing in a row.

The replacement of the entire Iridium constellation comes with a price tag of around $2.9 billion to the Virginia-based communications company, including around $800 million for Falcon 9 launch services and ground infrastructure upgrades. The Iridium constellation – much of which had been in operation since the late 1990s – was in dire need for replacement when the first batch of ten satellites went up in January as no more orbital spares were available to patch gaps left by failures on the aging satellites. A second group of ten satellites was orbited in June and Iridium hailed the performance of the new spacecraft that offer much higher capacity than its predecessors and add a unique capability of real-time maritime and aeronautical tracking on a global scale, offering access to new markets for Iridium and cooperating companies.

The Iridium constellation is serving close to a million customers at the moment, spread across a number of sectors including the U.S. military, oil & gas companies, transportation firms and aviation / maritime operators.

>> Iridium-NEXT Satellite & Constellation Overview


Image: Iridium Communications

Iridium awarded the contract for the Iridium-NEXT constellation to Thales Alenia space, tasked with building 81 NEXT satellites – 75 of which are headed to orbit to replace the 66-satellite constellation and pre-position nine spares to be ready to take over at short notice in case an active satellite runs into problems. The six remaining satellites will be kept in storage to be ready for launch when needed in order to extend the life of the new constellation over at least 15 years. Orbital ATK was sub-contracted for the integration of the Iridium-NEXT satellites, establishing an assembly line at the company's Arizona facility.

Each member of the constellation weighs 860 Kilograms at launch and hosts a powerful communications terminal covering a 4,700-Kilometer footprint on the ground with its L-Band phased array antenna to accept/send data packets which are then relayed to their destination through Ka-Band cross links between neighboring satellites.


Image: Iridium Communications

Services provided by Iridium-NEXT range from telephony over short-burst data delivery all the way to newly introduced high-capacity services with data speeds up to 8 Mbit/s realized via Ka-Band up/downlinks not possible with the heritage constellation. Iridium recently announced that the company's new Certus service had entered in-orbit testing, promising to deliver high-bandwidth services like Internet connectivity and HD video distribution to ships, aircraft and other mobile users with data speeds up to 1.4 Mbit/s.

Iridium-NEXT satellites also facilitate hosted payloads dedicated to tracking global ship traffic via the Automatic Identification System and air traffic via the ADS-B transponders installed on commercial aircraft. The layout of the Iridium constellation for global communications coverage also enables the hosted payloads to collect real-time data on ship and aircraft movements on a global scale. Iridium operates eleven active satellites in six orbital planes, flying 780 Kilometers in altitude at an inclination of 88° to create true global coverage.


Photo: Iridium Communications

Iridium reported that satellite production is on track to support the deployment of the entire NEXT constellation by mid-2018, requiring another four Falcon 9 missions with ten satellites and one ride shared between five NEXT satellites and a pair of GRACE-FO satellites dedicated to a study of Earth's gravity field under a joint German-U.S. project. Provided SpaceX can keep up its planned West Coast manifest, Iridium hopes to complete the constellation replacement by the end of next year.

The launch campaign leading up to Iridium-NEXT Flight 3 was fairly smooth sailing as the first two missions established the satellite processing procedure with launch vehicle processing also becoming closer to routine after five previous Falcon 9 missions from Vandenberg. The satellites shipped out in August and September to undergo final checks, take their slots on the two-tier launch adapter and receive their dose of Hydrazine maneuvering propellant. A minor five-day slip to the launch date occurred when second stage processing ran out of schedule margin, pushing the launch from an initial October 4th target.


Photo: SpaceX

Falcon 9 fired up its first stage early on Thursday as part of the standard Static Fire test before returning to the hangar to meet its payload. The two-stage rocket returned to the pad around noon on Sunday, taking its vertical launch position for an overnight countdown operation picking up with the activation of the launcher for a detailed set of checkouts to verify readiness for propellant loading.

With Falcon 9 receiving a clean bill of health and weather showing a 90% chance of acceptable conditions, all stations provided a 'Go' to press into the fast-paced automated countdown sequence. The auto script kicked in at the T-1-hour mark and Falcon headed into fueling, starting with loading some 155 metric tons of Rocket Propellant 1, chilled to -7°C, into the two stages of the rocket. Liquid Oxygen, sub-cooled to -207°C, began flowing into the first stage at T-35 minutes followed by rapid LOX loading on the second stage at T-20 minutes to provide Falcon 9 with around 360 metric tons of oxidizer.

>> Falcon 9 FT Overview


Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Tanking was still in full swing when Falcon 9 began executing its fast-paced final countdown phase at T-7 minutes, starting with the chilldown of the nine Merlin 1D engines followed in close succession by final checks of engine trim valves and thrust vector control actuators, the transfer to internal power and the retraction of the Strongback structure to clear the path uphill. Reaching the one-minute mark, Falcon 9 had armed its Autonomous Flight Termination System and control was handed off to the rocket's onboard computers to oversee the final pressurization of tanks and the critical ignition sequence.

Ignition of the nine Merlin engines was commanded at T-3 seconds and Falcon 9 roared to a launch thrust of nearly 700 metric ton force for liftoff at the precise time of 12:37:01 UTC, the instant Vandenberg was carried into Plane 4 of the Iridium constellation by Earth's rotation.


Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Lighting up the night, Falcon 9 rose vertically for the first 20 seconds of the flight before beginning its pitch-over to get aligned with a trajectory taking it due south in order to reach an orbit inclined 88.66°. Burning 2,500 Kilograms of propellant per second, the nine Merlin 1D engines pushed the vehicle to the speed of sound in just over a minute with a brief throttle-down around T+69 seconds when the vehicle was heading through the area of Maximum Aerodynamic Pressure on its way out of the dense atmosphere.

The first stage concluded its role in the day's ascent mission two minutes and 24 seconds after launch when shutting down its engines, having accelerated the vehicle to a speed of 1.93 Kilometers per second, or around a quarter of what is needed to achieve orbit. Separation of the stages via pneumatic pushers occurred four seconds after MECO some 66 Kilometers in altitude with the second stage heading into start-up mode and the first stage firing its cold gas thrusters to rapidly flip around and begin its return to Earth.


Stage 1 & 2 Part Ways – Image: SpaceX Webcast

With knowledge gained over the initial booster recovery attempts & upgrades to the thruster system and flight controls on the first stage, SpaceX was able to significantly tighten the interval between stage separation and the boostback maneuver. In fact, boostback missions now use the center engine to finish the flip maneuver to lim it the downrange travel distance to a minimum – particularly important for missions aiming for a full reversal to land on shore. Re-start of the center engine occurred two minutes and 40 seconds after launch and two outer engines joined five seconds later when the booster had leveled off, thrusting toward the velocity vector.

After the 32-second boost back, the first stage entered two and a half minutes of exospheric flight, climbing to an apogee of 107 Kilometers before dropping back toward Earth, in the process deploying its four aerodynamic grid fins and re-orienting for the entry burn.


1st Stage Entry Burn – Image: SpaceX Webcast

The 13-second Entry Burn commenced five minutes and 43 seconds into the flight, employing a trio of Merlin engines to slow the booster by 356 meters per second and set the course toward the Drone Ship.

The grid fins came into play after conclusion of the Entry Burn, controlling the booster's flight path toward the ASDS and setting the proper angle of attack for atmospheric descent. As a LEO mission, Monday's booster return enjoyed plenty of propellant margin that allowed for a single-engine landing maneuver, the preferred method as it allows more time for course corrections and finer control of the touchdown speed. Firing up the center engine around 30 seconds before touchdown, the booster successfully arrested its vertical speed and set itself down on four fold-out landing legs that deployed in the closing seconds of the decent.


1st Stage on final Approach – Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Mastering a bullseye landing on 'Just Read The Instructions' the Falcon 9 booster needed 7 minutes and 21 seconds for its trip to the edge of space and back. Initial safing was to be completed remotely before engineers could re-board the drone ship to tie the booster down for its trip to the Port of Los Angeles, marking the first step toward re-flight.

In charge of the primary mission, the Falcon 9 second stage fired its 95,000-Kilogram-force MVac engine for six minutes and 25 seconds to lift the stack into an elliptical parking orbit, shedding the payload fairing three minutes and 14 seconds into the mission when crossing 115km in altitude. Shutdown of the upper stage nine minutes after blastoff marked the mission's transition into a 43-minute passive flight phase to allow the second stage to make half a lap around the globe and, in the process, climb up to the high point of its orbit at around 633 Kilometers so that the brief engine re-start could act as a circularization maneuver.


Spacecraft Separation – Image: SpaceX Webcast


Image: SpaceX Webcast

While coasting, the second stage crossed the Pacific, flew over Antarctica and entered a leg to the north, passing over the Indian Ocean and reaching the range of a tracking station on Madagascar. The MVac engine re-started 52 minutes and four seconds into the flight, firing for just three seconds to accelerate the stack by 120 meters per second and lifting the perigee of the orbit to reach the staging and maintenance orbit of the Iridium constellation.

Arriving at its orbital destination, the second stage pitched down before initiating the sequential satellite separation sequence with one Iridium-NEXT satellite pushing off the two-tier adapter every 100 seconds, starting 57 minutes into the mission. SpaceX Launch Control called out all ten deployments in near real-time, marking the completion of Falcon's primary mission.

Unlike the first two Iridium-NEXT launches, there will be no drifting for the satellites delivered on Monday as all are headed directly into operational spots within Plane 4 of the constellation. All ten satellites checked in with ground stations, Iridium confirmed via Twitter. They are now set for a multi-week activation and checkout campaign to verify their space-to-ground and inter-satellite links before phasing into the operational constellation 780 Kilometers in altitude for instantaneous slot-swaps with retiring first-generation satellites.

Iridium is aiming for another launch before the end of the year, currently targeting late November in order to cross the 50% mark for constellation satellites sent into orbit on a path to having all satellites in orbit by mid-2018 so that all constellation satellites can be replaced by the end of next year.
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tnt22

Теперь полная обойма (все 10, все пока TBA )
 




tnt22

НОРАД идентифицировал все объекты запуска
 


tnt22

Цитировать Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 6 ч. назад

Following the successful launch of the Iridium NEXT-3 satellites, the landed Falcon 9 B1041 is heading to Los Angeles. Here she is, happily riding on the SpaceX ASDS JRTI, sailing past Catalina Island - photographed by NSF member Sam Sun. More words: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43777.msg1735872#msg1735872 ...
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tnt22

Цитировать Pauline Acalin‏ @w00ki33 10 ч. назад

The #IridiumNEXT-3 booster back at port in San Pedro this morning from its Oct 9 launch and landing at Vandenberg AFB. #SpaceX
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tnt22

http://www.dailybreeze.com/2017/10/12/recovered-spacex-booster-rocket-arrives-at-the-port-of-los-angeles/
ЦитироватьRecovered SpaceX booster rocket arrives at the Port of Los Angeles


A cyclist rides past a SpaceX booster as it sits on a barge waiting to be offloaded in San Pedro on Thursday, October 12, 2017. The booster was brought into the Port of Los Angeles after a successful landing at sea. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze)

By Sandy Mazza | amazza@scng.com | Daily Breeze
PUBLISHED: October 12, 2017 at 2:22 pm | UPDATED: October 12, 2017 at 5:31 pm


A Falcon 9 rocket booster built at SpaceX in Hawthorne and launched Monday from the California's central coast arrived at the Port of Los Angeles on Thursday morning.
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A SpaceX booster sits on a barge waiting to be offloaded in San Pedro on Thursday, October 12, 2017. The booster was brought into the Port of Los Angeles after a successful landing at sea. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze)

The 16-story-tall booster was affixed to its carrier — a robotic barge named Of Course I Still Love You — and still dusted with propellant exhaust. It delivered the upper stage carrying 10 Iridium NEXT communications satellites to orbit before dawn on Monday.

The rocket represented the 17th successful recovery of a flown booster for the company, which accomplished its 18th return Wednesday afternoon off the coast of Florida. SpaceX is building a fleet of reusable rocket equipment in order to drastically reduce the cost of spaceflight.

After it is offloaded from the barge, the booster wil be "parked" at SpaceX's leased spot on San Pedro's Outer Harbor before it is trucked to Texas for testing and preparations to be reused.

SpaceX is working to make its rockets fully recoverable using software technology that precisely guides boosters back to a specific point on Earth. But it has yet to return nose-cone fairings intact, despite repeated attempts.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said recently, in a public address, that the technology is improving rapidly and will ultimately be able to guide space-travelling equipment automatically without human guidance.
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tnt22

http://spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-ses-11/spacex-drone-ships-return-to-home-ports-with-more-less-used-falcon-9-rockets/
ЦитироватьSpaceX Drone Ships Return to Home Ports with More & Less Used Falcon 9 Rockets
October 15, 2017

SpaceX's two Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships have returned to their home ports on the East and West Coast of the United States after catching Falcon 9 boosters earlier this week.

Receiving the two boosters, ground crews will be tasked with unloading them fr om the ships and put them through post-flight safing with one booster in slightly less toasty condition entering refurbishment for a future mission and the other, well roasted first stage heading into inspections before retirement after a pair of operational missions.
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The twice-flown 1031 Booster arrives at Port Canaveral – Photo: John Kraus, http://johnkrausphotos.com/

Moving through its busy 2017 manifest at brisk pace, SpaceX managed to pack two launches into this week, starting off on Monday with the company's third mission in support of the deployment of the Iridium-NEXT constellation. Falcon 9, featuring brand new Block 4 first and second stages, lifted off from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base before sunrise on Monday, successfully delivering the ten satellites into their planned 620-Kilometer orbit and returning the first stage, designated Booster #1041, to the 'Just Read The Instructions' Drone Ship waiting 244 Kilometers south of the California launch site.


Iridium-3 (left) & SES-11 (right) liftoff shots – Credit: SpaceX

The second Falcon 9 launch of the week occurred at sunset on Wednesday from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A, featuring a previously flown first stage lifting off with the SES 11 broadcasting satellite. Having flown for the first time back in February on a Dragon resupply mission, the booster was facing a more challenging landing as SES 11 required higher performance from the launch vehicle to reach its desired high-energy transfer orbit.

Coming in hot and heavy, Booster #1031 successfully managed to find the Drone Ship 'Of Course I Still Love You' located 636 Kilometers from Cape Canaveral, battling choppy seas to provide a stable landing platform to the booster.

This marked the second time both SpaceX Drone Ships were out at sea with Falcon 9 stages sitting atop after the Iridium-2 booster and twice-flown BulgariaSat-1 booster returned in close succession in June 2017.

This week's Drone Ship landings increased SpaceX's streak to fourteen successful recoveries in a row and improves the company's stats for sea-based landings to 11 out of 16 tries. All seven landing attempts on pads on land have been successful, giving SpaceX a total of 15 recovered boosters including three that have flown to the edge of SpaceX and back twice.

>> SES-11 Launch Updates

>> Iridium-3 Mission Updates


Photo: Pauline Acalin, @w00ki33 on Twitter

After landing, the boosters were safed remotely to ensure their tanks were at safe pressures and any ordnances were secure before engineers were allowed to re-board the Drone Ships to tie down the first stages for their trip into port. Both recovery campaigns were not without issue as engineers in the Pacific had to hold off on re-boarding the Drone Ship due to rough seas, though booster 1041 remained in position close to the center of the prominent SpaceX logo painted on deck to mark the bullseye landing target.

In the waters of the Atlantic, Falcon 9 Booster #1031 was leaning to one side after using up some of its crush core capability when making its twilight touchdown. This apparently precluded the Octograbber or Roomba from being used to remotely secure the first stage as images show the traditional jackstands were used to tie it down on deck for the journey back to port.

Booster #1041 arrived at the Port of Los Angeles Thursday morning and was lifted off the Drone Ship and onto a ground stand by Friday for the removal of its landing legs, draining of leftover fuel and igniter fluid and transfer to a horizontal position to return to SpaceX's manufacturing base in Hawthorne, just over 20 Kilometers north from the port as the crow flies.
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Pauline Acalin @w00ki33

The #IridiumNEXT-3 booster back at port in San Pedro this morning from its Oct 9 launch and landing at Vandenberg AFB. #SpaceX

12:23 AM - Oct 13, 2017
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On the East Coast wh ere most of SpaceX's recoveries have occurred so far, the stage was set for an early Sunday morning arrival of Booster #1031 with the Drone Ship holding clear of the cost until being allowed into Port Canaveral. Prior to its arrival, the Go Searcher support ship headed into port with what appeared to be a piece of the rocket's payload fairing, indicating SpaceX is making quiet progress in the area of fairing recovery as the expectation is for fairing re-use to be realized at some point next year.


Photo: John Kraus,http://johnkrausphotos.com/

'Of Course I Still Love You' was towed into Port Canaveral around sunrise, marking 1031's first return through port since its first mission ended with a land-based landing at Cape Canaveral's Landing Zone 1, enabled by plenty of surplus propellants on Low Earth Orbit deliveries.



Comparing the two stages that returned to shore this week, the differences between Low Earth Orbit and Geotransfer Missions become obvious. Booster #1041, although appearing much darker than when it departed California due to soot deposited onto its fuel tank section, is seen in almost pristine shape with no obvious damage and four perfectly intact grid fins, minus the loss of some of their coating. The twice-flown 1031 on the other hand, suffered a bit more as it faced much higher entry energy.


Booster #1041 on Final Approach to JRTI -Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Although the #1041 vehicle carried a heavier load than #1031, delivering payloads to Low Earth Orbit leaves the first stage with plenty of excess performance. This allowed Booster #1041 to conduct a boost-back maneuver immediately after sending the second stage on its way, hitting the brakes and shortening its downrange travel distance. A 13-second burn at re-entry slowed the booster to 871 meters per second for atmospheric entry.

>> Falcon 9 FT Overview


Signs of a Hot Re-Entry for Booster 1031 – Photo: SpaceX Webcast


Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Sending the Falcon 9 second stage with SES 11 on its way toward Geostationary Transfer Orbit required Booster #1031 to fire its engines 12 seconds longer than #1041, consequently accelerating the vehicle to a higher MECO velocity (2.29km/s vs. 1.93km/s for Iridium-3) and burning propellants that would not be available for a boost back maneuver. As a result, #1031 could only make a twenty-second braking maneuver just before re-entry, slowing down to 1.66 Kilometers per second (hitting the atmosphere 793m/s faster than #1041).

Kinetic energy increases as a square of the velocity and peak heating as a cube of velocity – explaining why even a slightly higher MECO velocity/entry speed will have a considerable effect on the stage's return journey. Onboard video from Booster #1031 showed the vehicle immersed in plasma as it hit the dense atmosphere en-route to a post-sunset landing on the OCISLY Drone Ship. Pieces of the engine section heat shield were seen flying off and the aluminum grid fins were glowing white hot before onboard video cut out. Photos of the booster after its return showed part of the grid fins facing the hypersonic flow had burned away and molten aluminum had been deposited onto the interstage downstream.

Although Booster #1031, a Block 3 vehicle, is unlikely to fly to space a third time, its recovery will provide SpaceX with additional data on how repeat mission cycles affect the different components on the booster. This knowledge can be used to tweak the design of the Falcon 9 Block 5 vehicle that will represent the launcher's final design iteration, optimized for high performance and easy re-use of the first stage without extensive refurbishment work in between flights to realize SpaceX's goal of considerably cutting costs for access to space.


KoreaSat-5A in final processing – Photo: Thales Alenia

With both boosters back on dry land, SpaceX will begin shifting focus to its next mission, still targeting an October 30 liftoff from LC-39A with the KoreaSat-5A communications satellite. After that, a previously undisclosed mission has shown up on the East Coast manifest – going only by the code name Zuma with no payload or customer associated with it. This flight, documentation filed by SpaceX with the Federal Communications Commission shows, is targeting launch as early as mid-November with filings indicating the mission would feature a Landing Zone 1 recovery of the first stage. It is highly unusual for a mission to remain secret until this close to launch.

After the mysterious Zuma launch, SpaceX will move Falcon 9 east coast operations back to Space Launch Complex 40 that was knocked offline on September 1st, 2016 – sustaining extensive damage in the explosion of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying AMOS-6 during the countdown toward its Static Fire Test. Moving back to SLC-40 with the Dragon SpX-13 mission (NET Late November), SpaceX will be clear to enter outfitting tasks on LC-39A to set up for the inaugural mission of the three-core Falcon Heavy rocket.

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tnt22

https://blog.iridium.com/2017/10/11/third-set-of-iridium-next-satellites-arrive-in-orbit-and-provide-telemetry/
ЦитироватьThird Set of Iridium® NEXT Satellites Arrive in Orbit and Provide Telemetry
by Iridium | Oct 11, 2017 | Aireon, Iridium, Iridium NEXT


Photo credit: SpaceX

Iridium Communications announced today that the third set of 10 Iridium NEXT satellites, launched Monday by SpaceX, are functioning nominally and have begun the testing and validation process. This batch of 10 satellites was launched out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, increasing the total number of Iridium NEXT satellites in space to 30.

"Since Monday's success, all things are pointing positive," said Scott Smith, chief operating officer at Iridium. "The team at the Satellite Network Operations Center (SNOC) is ready and has already been working around the clock since their deployment Monday. Unlike previous launches, where some satellites were sent drifting to their operational orbital plane, all 10 satellites fr om this launch will go directly into operation once testing is completed. This phase of satellite maneuvers and testing is wh ere the Iridium satellite network operations teams truly shine."

Now, and for approximately the next 45 days, these newly launched satellites will undergo a series of testing and validation procedures, ensuring they are ready for integration with the operational constellation. Once testing is completed, Iridium will also hand over control of Aireon's Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast hosted payload, to the team at Aireon's Hosted Payload Operations Center (HPOC), also in Leesburg, Va.

For more information about Iridium NEXT, please visit www.IridiumNEXT.com.

tnt22


tnt22

Цитировать Iridium Corporate‏Подлинная учетная запись @IridiumComm 13 ч. назад

Our new #Iridium-3 ducklings (SVs) were seen neatly in a row over Japan just after our Oct 9 launch http://bit.ly/2hOx258  #ConnectTheDots
http://bit.ly/2hOx258 --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2yYUnEP5V8
Цитировать2017年10月11日4時25分に見えた10基のイリジウム衛星 (10 Iridium satellites - October 11, 2017 4:25 JST)

HIRAHAKU

Опубликовано: 10 окт. 2017 г.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2yYUnEP5V8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2yYUnEP5V8 (1:36)

tnt22

ЦитироватьIridium NEXT Third Launch Highlights

IridiumComm

Опубликовано: 26 окт. 2017 г.

On October 9, 2017, Iridium successfully launched ten more Iridium NEXT satellites into low-Earth orbit. With two successful launches having already been completed this year, this third batch of 10 satellites brings the total number of Iridium NEXT satellites in orbit to 30, nearly half the amount required for a full Iridium NEXT operational constellation. Here are some of the highlights and memorable moments of this exciting day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qng-Rw95Z8Ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qng-Rw95Z8I (3:32)

tnt22

Цитировать Matt Desch‏ @IridiumBoss 26 мин. назад

Launch 3 SV change-outs continue to go well. Today's replacement of SV5 and SV6 mean no SVs from 1st launch 20 yrs ago in network anymore!

tnt22

Цитировать Matt Desch‏ @IridiumBoss 36 мин назад

Launch 3 sat activities progressing well on schedule. By tomorrow, 6 of 10 will be carrying traffic; all 10 by next weekend. SV8 and SV51 deboosted with 4 more by YE. #IridiumNEXT