Paz - Falcon 9 - Vandenberg SLC-4E - 22.02.2018 11:25 UTC

[tnt22]

Michael Baylor‏ @nextspaceflight 2 мин. назад

Just a fairing floating in the water. Nothing to see here. #SpaceX

[KBOB]

ГО плавает https://www.instagram.com/p/BfgRX-lgIt6/

[tnt22]

Elon Musk‏Подлинная учетная запись @elonmusk 4 мин. назад

First two Starlink demo satellites, called Tintin A & B, deployed and communicating to Earth stations

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/966703247833649155/pu/vid/640x360/iY6VxlOJ6XdKJVhC.mp4
(прямая ссылка)

Video (0:08 )

https://img.novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/173959.jpg

[tnt22]

НОРАД зафиксировал 4 объекта запуска - все TBA

Код Выделить Развернуть

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43215U 18020A   18053.65667485 -.00000069  00000-0  00000+0 0  9995
2 43215  97.4622  62.5094 0013705 270.0942 187.0226 15.19257532    09

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43216U 18020B   18053.65423199 -.00000070  00000-0  00000+0 0  9990
2 43216  97.4609  62.5014 0014990 268.7469 175.0957 15.20145048    00

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43217U 18020C   18053.65692826 -.00000070  00000-0  00000+0 0  9996
2 43217  97.4640  62.5073 0014633 280.8293 177.7374 15.19735452    09

0 TBA - TO BE ASSIGNED
1 43218U 18020D   18053.65952442 -.00000707  22367-5  00000+0 0  9992
2 43218  97.2681  60.5371 0226656 263.4923 209.9861 15.68287237    05

[tnt22]

Elon Musk‏Подлинная учетная запись @elonmusk 39 мин. назад

Tintin A & B will attempt to beam "hello world" in about 22 hours when they pass near LA


37 мин. назад

Don't tell anyone, but the wifi password is "martians"

[ZOOR]

tnt22 пишет:
Отделение Paz

Да, с Днепра не было бы видно

[tnt22]

http://spacenews.com/spacex-launches-pair-of-its-demo-internet-satellites-with-spanish-radar-satellite/

SpaceX launches pair of its demo internet satellites with Spanish radar satellite
by Caleb Henry — February 22, 2018


Hisdesat's Paz satellite seen separating from the Falcon 9 rocket's upper stage. SpaceX's demo broadband satellites Tintin A and B are visible on the left and right attached to the upper stage. Credit: SpaceX video still.

WASHINGTON — SpaceX on Feb. 22 launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Spanish-owned radar-imaging satellite and two demonstration satellites for SpaceX's proposed broadband Starlink broadband constellation. The 9:17 a.m. Eastern launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carried all three spacecraft to low Earth orbit, deploying the PAZ radar satellite 11 minutes after liftoff.

Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO, confirmed successful deployment of the Starlink demo satellites, dubbed TinTin A and B, via Twitter about 80 minutes after liftoff.

Спойлер

"Tintin A & B will attempt to beam "hello world" in about 22 hours when they pass near LA," Musk tweeted.

The day before launch, Musk said Starlink — a global constellation of 4,500 broadband spacecraft in low-Earth orbit — "will serve [the] least served."

SpaceX did not attempt to land Falcon 9's previously flown first stage following the mission but did attempt to recover the rocket's upgraded fairing using a parafoil and ship equipped with a large catcher's net.

The fairing, which enshrouds the satellite on the way to orbit, cost $6 million — money SpaceX would like to save if possible.

The clamshell-like fairing halves missed the recovery ship by a few hundred meters, according to Musk, but landed in the ocean intact. "Should be able catch it with slightly bigger chutes to slow down descent," Musk tweeted.

While much of the interest around the launch centered on SpaceX's own broadband satellites, the mission brought to an end a long wait by Hisdesat, the Spanish satellite operator who originally paid the Russian-Ukrainian company Kosmotras to launch Paz on a Dnepr rocket four years ago. After three years of delay, Hisdesat switched to SpaceX in 2017 and sued Kosmotras to retrieve 15 million euros ($16 million) in launch payments.

Paz is a 1,400-kilogram synthetic-aperture radar satellite from Airbus Defence and Space that can image up to 300,000 square kilometers of the Earth's surface each day. The Spanish Aerospace Technology Institute developed the satellite's ground segment with Madrid-based company Indra.

Hisdesat and Airbus plan to operate Paz with the German TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X radar satellites to form a SAR constellation.

Along with its primary mission, Paz carries two additional payloads. The first is a maritime-focused Automatic Identification System payload that Canadian company exactEarth will use to complete its first-generation ship-tracking constellation. The second is a weather payload called the Radio Occultation and Heavy Precipitation, or ROHP, experiment from the Institute of Space Science del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. The instrument will study how measurements of satellite navigation signals passing through Earth's atmosphere can yield data on powerful storms.

[свернуть]

[tnt22]

Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 10 мин. назад

Possible observation of Falcon 9 stage 2 deorbit, over Norway. Stage goes over the pole and heads south over Alaska to impact in Pacific between Aleutians and Midway

Magnus Rydningen @steinegal
В ответ @S101_Live @planet4589
This might be the deorbit observed over Northern Norway 10 minutes ago

9:31 - 22 февр. 2018 г.

[Дем]

Кстати на первой ступени стояли "мухобойки" и вроде бы после отделения она маневрировала...

[tnt22]

http://spaceflight101.com/falcon-9-paz/falcon-9-paz-launch/

Falcon 9 Launches PAZ Radar Satellite & SpaceX Starlink Prototypes, Debuts Fairing 2.0
February 22, 2018

Photo: SpaceX

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket provided a spectacular show to morning commuters across Southern California on Thursday after taking off from Vandenberg Air Force Base with Spain's PAZ radar satellite and a pair of SpaceX prototype broadband satellites. Falcon 9 streaked into the morning sun as it climbed skyward while observers on the ground remained in the dark and were stunned by the expanding clouds of gas emanating from the rocket and the various components it shed on its way into orbit.

Thursday's launch marked SpaceX's fourth mission of the year and the 20th orbital space launch of 2018, involving a re-used Falcon 9 first stage from a 2017 VAFB mission and debuting SpaceX's "Payload Fairing 2.0" designed for operational recovery and re-flight missions as the company continues its push toward making more and more elements of their launch system re-usable to slash costs for accessing space.

Спойлер

Fairing 2.0 Separation – Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Blasting off from SLC-4E at Vandenberg at 14:17 UTC, 6:17 a.m. local time, the 70-meter tall Falcon 9 fired its first stage for the first two and a half minutes of the mission before the MVac-powered second stage took over for a direct boost into a 514-Kilometer Sun Synchronous Orbit. The twice-used Booster was not planned to be recovered and, like a number of recent expendable missions, went through a series of flight tests after separation before finding a watery grave in the Pacific Ocean. These post-separation maneuvers contributed to be powerful display painted into the outer atmosphere by Falcon 9 and visible across most of California.

The launch of PAZ, coming after years of delays and a launch vehicle switch, was initially expected on Saturday but slipped into this week as SpaceX took additional time to review what it called "an upgraded payload fairing." Sources have since confirmed that this indeed referred to the long-awaited "Fairing 2.0" that SpaceX hopes will lead to considerable progress in the area of fairing re-use by the end of the year.

Photo: SpaceX

Installed atop the rocket's second stage, the Payload Fairing is tasked with protecting the vehicle's payload while out in the elements waiting for launch and during the extreme aerodynamic environments encountered during atmospheric ascent. Falcon 9 flies with one of the largest payload fairings currently in operation under a "one size fits all" architecture as opposed to other launchers that can use differently sized fairings to accommodate payloads of various sizes.

The 13-meter long, 5.2-meter diameter payload fairing maintains the rocket's aerodynamic profile while flying through the dense atmospheric layers before splitting open and separating in two halves roughly three to four minutes into the mission when its protection is no-longer needed in order to discard unnecessary weight.

SpaceX Original Fairing Design – Photo: SpaceX

SpaceX earmarked the fairing as a desired re-use item early on because of two major factors: a) its cost being around 10% of the total cost for a Falcon 9 and b) its all-composite construction being a time-intensive process creating a potential bottleneck in the company's plans for a rapid mission cadence.

The survivability of SpaceX's baseline fairing design was proven in 2015 when large chunks of a fairing half washed up in South Carolina after floating for one month in the Atlantic. Video obtained from cameras installed on that fairing delivered a stunning look at its journey back to Earth and also confirmed SpaceX was actively pursuing fairing re-use. An initial controlled landing attempt on the April 2017 Falcon 9 mission with SES-10 returned one fairing half mostly in one piece; however, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently characterized the re-usable fairing development as "surprisingly complex."

Photo: SpaceX

The step-up to Fairing 2.0 was incremental with several of the previous generation fairings introducing some of the recovery systems with all eventually coming together in the upgraded fairing design that consists of fewer parts, is lighter in mass and allows for faster manufacture. From an external appearance, Fairing 2.0 seems to be slightly larger than its predecessor, growing around 0.1 meter in diameter and length based on imagery of the PAZ vehicle, but what differentiates it from the baseline Falcon fairing resides on the inside and at the fairing base in the form of an upgraded structural interface.

Each fairing half has its own avionics system, pressure vessels holding Nitrogen gas, a manifold of lines transporting propellant to a series of cold gas thrusters and a compartment for an auto-steering parachute. One particular area improved on Fairing 2.0 was the chute attachment since the baseline fairing introduced a turbulent airflow that made the chutes only partially effective, resulting in trouble on the way back to Earth, especially in the accuracy department.

As the fairings separate from the ascending rocket, they are to employ their thrusters to stabilize from their initial tumble and enter a pre-determined orientation for atmospheric re-entry. The auto-steering chute will then be tasked with guiding each fairing half toward a recovery boat positioned to 'catch' it.

Photo: SpaceX/Elon Musk

A vessel going by the name of "Mr. Steven" made a first appearance last year, featuring a four-armed contraption to support the fairing recovery, described by Musk as a "giant catcher's mitt." Recent photos of Mr. Steven have shown a net was added in between the four metal arms and the ship departed the Port of Los Angeles before noon on Tuesday to be ready to catch a fairing half.

The launch of PAZ and the two MicroSats was handled by the first "Sooty" Falcon 9 booster to launch from the West Coast, having flown back in August 2017 with the FormoSat-5 satellite for Taiwan. Still sporting the sooty attire from its first voyage to space, Booster 1038 was only outfitted with grid fins on Thursday to enable some post-separation flight testing toward a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean as a means of disposal since the Block 3 booster was not deemed suitable for anything beyond two missions.

Image: Airbus Defence & Space

B1038 was the final Block 3 booster to roll off SpaceX's production line and may very well be the last Block 3 vehicle to fly. Following last-year's debut of the slightly improved Block 4, SpaceX now plans to roll out the Falcon 9 Block 5 – the final iteration of the workhorse launcher – in April for a Geotransfer Mission out of Cape Canaveral.

The primary passenger for Thursday's mission was PAZ, an X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite commissioned by Hisdesat and the Spanish Government for multi-mission use in the defence and security sectors, for Earth observation and commercial exploitation of high-quality radar imagery at a ground resolution exceeding one meter. PAZ, Spanish for 'peace,' is the first member in the country's Program for Earth Observation by Satellite (PNOTS) that is to include PAZ as radar component and the upcoming Ingenio optical-imaging spacecraft for multi-band imagery collection.

Astrium (now operating under Airbus) was awarded the contract for PAZ in 2008 with an initial goal of launching in 2012. However, the satellite was forced to remain on the ground when its Dnepr rocket fell victim to the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine; eventually prompting Hisdesat to switch launch providers to a 2017 launch slot on SpaceX's manifest.

>> PAZ Satellite & Instrument Overview

Photo: Airbus Defence & Space

The 1,350-Kilogram PAZ satellite employs a hexagonal satellite platform with a diameter of 2.4 meters and a length of five meters, hosting a large XSAR antenna on one of its side panels operating at a center frequency of 9.65 GHz and a peak transmit power of 2,260 Watts, capable of operation in various imaging modes including high-resolution spotlight and wide-area ScanSAR to deliver a multitude of data products. Auxiliary payloads include an AIS ship-tracking terminal and GNSS occultation instrument for atmospheric profiling.

Among the services provided by the PAZ mission is geo-information intended to enhance surveillance of the Spanish territory and other parts of the globe, improve the security of the Spanish borders, support operations of the Spanish armed forces, provide data for natural disaster assessment and mitigation, and support risk and crisis management. Data from the satellite will also be used to support operations against piracy in the waters off Somalia and to control the illegal traffic of immigrants into and through Spanish waters.

MicroSat-2a & 2b – Photo: SpaceX

PAZ has a planned service life of seven years, but Hisdesat is confident the spacecraft will last for at least ten – in part because of the performance of its predecessors, the German TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X that have been in operation since 2007 and 2010 and will be set for a coordinated extended mission with PAZ co-located in their orbital plane to maximize coverage.

Riding shotgun alongside PAZ were SpaceX's MicroSat-2a and 2b, the first prototypes from the company's satellite venture operating out of Redmond, Washington to develop the "Starlink" Internet constellation. The two 400-Kilogram satellites are the first of over 11,000 Starlink satellites to be launched by SpaceX to establish a global Fixed Satellite Services architecture capable of bringing Internet access to all corners of the Earth.

SpaceX announced the Starlink venture in 2015 but has since been extremely tight-lipped about it, only noting that it is still in its development phase. However, filings made with the Federal Communications Commission indicate SpaceX is planning to launch a series of prototypes in 2018 to fully characterize signal and transmission capabilities before pressing into the deployment of the operational constellation as early as next year.

>> MicroSat-2a & 2b / Starlink Overview

Photo: SpaceX

According to 2017 documentation, Starlink is to consist of two constellation segments: 4,425 satellites in 83 orbital planes at an altitude of 1,200 Kilometers operating at the Ku/Ka/V-Band frequencies and 7,518 satellites in a Very Low Earth Orbit at 340 Kilometers operating solely in the seldom-used V-Band spectrum. The MicroSat-2a and 2b satellites are identical and only host Ku-Band links to test the data throughput capabilities, pointing of broadband arrays, and ground station handoffs. They will complete one communications demonstration every day for six to 12 months from an orbit of 1,125 Kilometers, according to FCC documentation.

Falcon 9 was wheeled out to the launch pad at SLC-4E on Tuesday with less than 24 hours to go until Wednesday's instantaneous launch slot. Upper level winds just 1.8% above allowable limits thwarted plans for launching on Wednesday and SpaceX went into a 24-hour recycle.

Photo: SpaceX Webcast

Countdown operations picked up again in the late hours on Wednesday and ran like clockwork as Falcon 9 checked off a series of tests before being handed over to computers to orchestrate the complex tanking sequence picking up at T-70 minutes to load the two-stage rocket with around 155 metric tons of chilled Rocket Propellant 1 and some 360 metric tons of sub-cooled Liquid Oxygen.

Falcon 9 was venting gaseous oxygen as it headed into the fast-paced events of its final countdown sequence to chill down its nine Merlin 1D engines, switch to battery power, retract the Strongback structure and achieve flight levels on its fuel and oxidizer tanks with close-out of LOX load right at the T-2-minute mark. A final GO was voiced from the Autonomous Flight Termination System as Falcon 9 assumed control at the one-minute mark and the Launch Director gave his final approval with half a minute on the clock.

Photo: SpaceX

The bright green flash of Falcon's igniter mix lit up the rocket's business end at T-3 seconds as all nine engines soared up to a cumulative launch thrust near 600 metric-ton-force under close watch by computers. Hold-downs released the rocket at precisely 14:17:00 UTC, right at first light and still 21 minutes before sunrise – creating the right ingredients for another spectacular display in the SoCal skies similar to that of December's Iridium-4 mission that occurred at evening twilight.

Rising from its launch pad, Falcon 9 climbed vertically before pitching and rolling onto its flight trajectory to the south-south-west, headed toward a 97.44° orbit. As the vehicle went through the sound barrier, thrust on the nine Merlin engines was reduced for Maximum Dynamic Pressure before Falcon 9 went back into full thrust mode for another minute of first stage flight – ascending into sunlight as it rapidly gained altitude.

Photo: SpaceX Webcast

The first stage shut down two minutes and 29 seconds into the flight after boosting the vehicle to a speed of 1.87 Kilometers per second, departing the stack via four pneumatic pushers that sent the stages on their opposite ways three seconds after MECO. Immediately after staging, the MVac-powered second stage went into start-up mode and ignited its 95,000-Kilogram-force engine on a planned burn of 6 minutes and 18 seconds to directly inject the stack into its target orbit – flying an initial lofted trajectory to climb to the target altitude before pitching down to accelerate to orbital velocity.

Fairing 2.0 had its big moment two minutes and 59 seconds into the flight when it dropped away from the climbing rocket and began its trip back toward Earth. At least one half of the fairing featured recovery hardware and was headed for an attempt to maneuver toward the fairing recovery vessel deployed underneath the rocket's flight path around 510 Kilometers from the launch pad.

The fairing half pegged for recovery successfully managed to descend from space and deploy its parafoil, but missed Mr. Steven "by a few hundred meters," according to Elon Musk. Apparently the half splashed down intact and future plans of increasing the size of the chutes may make the feat of catching it easier.

elonmusk


2 ч. назад

Photo: SpaceX Webcast


PAZ Separation – Photo: SpaceX Webcast

For the first stage, separation marked the start of a data-gathering exercise on its return regime. December's Iridium-4 mission and the GovSat flight in January both disposed their boosters via soft splashdown landings after collecting data on flight environments not possible for operational returns to deliver valuable information for the continued refinement of the booster return sequence.

Stage 2 was lightly loaded on Thursday, carrying a total payload upmass of around 2,200 Kilograms whereas the vehicle's theoretical capacity to the target orbit was 8,600kg with RTLS landing of the first stage and 11,700kg with ASDS recovery. Real time calls made by the launch team indicated Stage 2 performed admirably throughout its burn, spending the last 15 seconds in terminal guidance to ensure an on-target injection of the PAZ satellite and its two companions.

Shutdown of the second stage was called right at the T+9-minute mark and the guidance engineers confirmed a good orbit was achieved. The PAZ satellite was sent on its way just after clocks hit T+11 minutes, starting a decade-long mission to deliver high-quality radar imagery and ship-tracking data to the Spanish Government and commercial customers. SpaceX did not cover the separation of the two MicroSats and details on their mission are unlikely to be coming forward given the secrecy with which the project reached the launch pad.

[свернуть]

[tnt22]

Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 11 мин. назад

PAZ and the Tintins are in a 495 x 516 km x 97.3 deg sunsync orbit with 06:00 LT of descending node.

[tnt22]

Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 11 мин. назад

The second stage deorbit burns were at 1542 and 1709 UTC (the latter time from Magnus' observations)

[tnt22]

Peter B. de Selding‏ @pbdes 7 мин. назад

Germany's @DLR_de, which is managing early ops for Paz radar sat, said all good after separation from @SpaceX Falcon 9; ground station received telemetry 75 mins after liftoff.

[tnt22]

02/22/2018 19:16 Stephen Clark

Airbus Defense and Space, builder of the Spanish Paz radar craft, says ground controllers in Europe have established communications with the newly-launched Earth observation satellite.

[tnt22]

http://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corporate-topics/publications/press-release/Press-Release-SPACE-SYSTEMS-22022018-EN.pdf

[tnt22]

http://www.vandenberg.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1447625/falcon-9-paz-launched-from-vandenberg/

Falcon 9 PAZ launched from Vandenberg
30th Space Wing Public Affairs / Published February 22, 2018

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --
Team Vandenberg successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a PAZ payload from Space Launch Complex-4 here, Thursday, Feb. 22, at 6:17 a.m. PST.

Col. Greg Wood, 30th Space Wing vice commander, was the space launch commander.

"This launch was a testament to the hard work of Team Vandenberg, SpaceX and Spain," said Wood. "I am proud of everyone involved that continues to pave the way for our nation's access to space."

[Зловредный]

Interstage старый. А на первых повторных запусках его заменяли, я читал.

[tnt22]

SpaceX Falcon 9 PAZ launch from Vandenberg AFB

30th Space Wing, Vandenberg AFB

Опубликовано: 22 февр. 2018 г.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4911KtNe-bohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4911KtNe-bo (1:37)

[tnt22]

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/02/22/recycled-spacex-rocket-boosts-paz-radar-satellite-first-starlink-testbeds-into-orbit/

Recycled SpaceX rocket boosts Paz radar satellite, first Starlink testbeds into orbit
February 22, 2018 Stephen Clark


A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Thursday fr om Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, with three satellites. Credit: SpaceX

Launching with a Spanish radar observation craft and the first two experimental satellites for SpaceX's planned global broadband network, a Falcon 9 rocket fired away fr om California's Central Coast shortly before sunrise Thursday after several days of delays.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 launcher climbed into a clear sky from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base, riding a column of orange exhaust from nine kerosene-burning Merlin main engines.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 6:17 a.m. PST (9:17 a.m. EST; 1417 GMT) after a 70-minute automated countdown sequence. The first stage's Merlin engines vectored their thrust to pitch the rocket south-southwest from Vandenberg, and the booster shut down and jettisoned around two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff to fall into the Pacific Ocean.

Спойлер

A few seconds later, a second stage engine ignited to finish the job of placing the Paz Earth-observing satellite and SpaceX's first two broadband test probes into orbit.

The Falcon 9's nose cone separated just prior to the flight's three-minute point, and the second stage engine burned until around T+plus 9 minutes, setting up for deployment of Paz and the twin SpaceX-developed broadband satellites, nicknamed Tintin A and Tintin B in apparent reference to the main character in the comic series "The Adventures of Tintin."

SpaceX confirmed the on-target release of Paz, the mission's primary payload, around 11 minutes after liftoff. The company ended its live webcast before announcing deployment of the two broadband testbeds, which are also known as Microsat-2a and Microsat-2b.

The launch company did not plan to recover the first stage on Thursday's flight. It was the second launch for a booster that previously lofted the Taiwanese Formosat 5 Earth observation mission toward orbit from California in August.

But SpaceX attempted to catch at least one of the Falcon 9 rocket's fairing structures with a boat positioned in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California.


SpaceX's fairing recovery boat, named Mr. Steven. Credit: SpaceX

The shroud protects the rocket's sensitive payloads from weather before liftoff, and it shields the satellites from the aerodynamic stress during the Falcon 9's climb through the lower atmosphere. After soaring into space, the fairing jettisons from the top of the rocket in two pieces that open up like a clamshell and fall away behind the Falcon 9 upper stage.

Engineers added cold gas control thrusters and parachutes to previous fairings in a bid to get one of the structures back intact, but SpaceX has not yet perfected the concept, and officials suggested previous experiments yielded mixed results.

A fast-moving vessel set sail from the Port of Los Angeles this week for a destination under the Falcon 9 rocket's flight track. Photos of the boat, named Mr. Steven, show it sporting a net suspended between four metal posts to snare the Falcon 9's payload fairing.

The fairing "falls back from space at about eight times the speed of sound," SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk wrote on Instagram shortly before Thursday's launch. "It has onboard thrusters and a guidance system to bring it through the atmosphere intact, then releases a parafoil and our ship, named Mr. Steven, with basically a giant catcher's mitt welded on, tries to catch it."

Musk wrote on Twitter that the fairing panel landed a few hundred meters from the retrieval vessel. He shared in an image on social media that showed half of the fairing intact floating in the Pacific.


One half of the Falcon 9's payload fairing is pictured floating in the Pacific Ocean after a recovery attempt Thursday. Credit: SpaceX

"Should be able catch it with slightly bigger chutes to slow down descent," he wrote, later adding that the next fairing recovery try could come in about one month, likely on the next Falcon 9 launch from California targeted for March 29.

Musk said Feb. 6 that the company was readying for the debut of an upgraded fairing designed for easier recovery and reuse. SpaceX delayed the launch from last weekend to Wednesday to complete checks on the upgraded shroud flying with Paz.

SpaceX's launch team aborted a countdown Wednesday due to unfavorable upper level winds.

The successful recovery and reuse of a Falcon 9 payload fairing would be a first in the rocket industry. If SpaceX can make the concept work, it could shave millions from the cost of a Falcon 9 launch, which currently sells for around $62 million.

Musk said last year the fairing costs around $5 million to produce for each launch.

SpaceX's reuse of first stage boosters already cuts the cost of many Falcon 9 launches, eliminating manufacturing expenses and bottlenecks. SpaceX says Falcon 9 customers will eventually see steep price reductions, but payload owners so far have been lured to reused boosters primarily by schedule shortcuts enabled by the practice, not price cuts.

The 3,200-pound (1,450-kilogram) Paz satellite launched Thursday will capture high-resolution views of cities, landscapes and oceans with an X-band radar instrument.

Paz measures more than 16 feet (5 meters) long and 8 feet (2.5 meters) in diameter. It is the largest satellite ever assembled in Spain, according to Alfonso Martínez, Paz project manager at the spacecraft's prime contractor, Airbus Defense and Space, which constructed Paz in Madrid.

Paz is owned by Hisdesat, which oversees Spain's governmental satellite programs.

The $200 million (160 million euro) mission, primarily funded by the Spanish government, will produce radar imagery for the Spanish military and its allies, plus commercial clients.


Artist's concept of the Paz satellite in orbit. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space / Hisdesat

"It's a very flexible mission," said Miguel Angel García Primo, Hisdesat's chief operating officer, in an interview this week. "It's useful for a lot of applications, environmental, also for big infrastructure tracking and planning, maritime surveillance and government applications like monitoring and surveillance for any specific items that you'd like to follow."

The Falcon 9 rocket aimed to release the Paz satellite into a 319-mile-high (514-kilometer) polar orbit tilted around 97.4 degrees to the equator. SpaceX officials said the Falcon 9's upper stage achieved an on-target orbit.

Paz will share the orbit with two German radar satellites — TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X — launched in 2007 and 2010. Airbus and Hisdesat will jointly manage the commercial sales and marketing of radar data from the radar satellite constellation, and the European Commission will incorporate Paz into its fleet of Copernicus Earth-observing missions.

The trio of radar imaging spacecraft will together see almost any part of Earth's surface in less than three days. On average, the satellites will record an image of the same region within 24 hours, according to DLR, the German space agency.

Composed of nearly 400 individual transmitters, the Paz radar will beam signals down toward Earth and measure waves bounced off the planet's surface, revealing fine textures and terrain details that can be translated into an image. The benefit of a radar observation satellite is the ability to see Earth's surface under any weather conditions, day and night, while optical imagers are hampered by clouds and darkness.

The radar will operate in several modes, with a high-resolution "spotlight" mode that can see objects on Earth's surface as small as 10 inches, or 25 centimeters — a capability García Primo said will differentiate Paz from other radar satellites not designed exclusively for military users.

"We have defined a very high-resolution radar mode that would be more government-oriented, but we have also have a medium-resolution and low-resolution (mode) with very wide coverage that could be for maritime surveillance and monitoring, or could be for environmental missions like oil spill detection, things like that," he said.

The radar imagery "will be available to any customer," he said. "We will have some data policy from the Spanish government that anyone who fulfills that regulation will have access to that kind of high-resolution image. There will be some limitation according to the law, but in principle it's open to any good customers that we have."


Paz inside the SpaceX satellite processing facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Credit: Hisdesat

Paz established contact with a ground control center in southern Germany shortly after arriving in orbit Thursday, according to Airbus. Control of the satellite will be handed over to a facility near Madrid operated by INTA — the Spanish space agency — and Hisdesat in about five days.

Testing of the Paz satellite will be completed in about three months, Airbus said.

Paz also carries a receiver to track global maritime traffic. Coupled with the radar imagery, the ship tracker will allow Paz customers to identify vessels at sea.

The satellite also hosts "an instrument that will try to predict heavy precipitation through the radio occultation of the GPS signals through the atmosphere," García Primo said. "We will try to forecast in order to prevent natural disasters, especially disasters specific to very high precipitation — flooding and so on."

Thursday's launch also marked a turning point for SpaceX's broadband Internet project, a project described by company founder Elon Musk in 2015 as a revenue source for the company's broad ambitions to explore the solar system.

Until Thursday, SpaceX had said little publicly about the broadband network, dubbed Starlink, other than trickles of information disclosed in regulatory filings.

"If successful, (the) Starlink constellation will serve least served," Musk wrote on Twitter.

"Tintin A & B will attempt to beam 'hello world' in about 22 hours when they pass near LA," Musk tweeted.

SpaceX planned to place the two Starlink prototypes, developed by the company's division in Redmond, Washington, into the same 317-mile-high orbit as Paz.

The two test satellites will boost themselves into a higher orbit roughly 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) in altitude once ground controllers finish an initial post-launch checkout of the spacecraft, Patricia Cooper, SpaceX's vice president of satellite government affairs, wrote in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission dated Feb. 1.

In a previous FCC filing, SpaceX said Microsat-2a and Microsat-2b are designed for 20-month missions.

Each satellite measures about the size of a mini-refrigerator and carries computer, power, command and control, propulsion and GPS navigation equipment typical for small spacecraft. A Ku-band broadband phased array antenna and an inter-satellite optical communications link is also included on each spacecraft, according to SpaceX.

"These are experimental engineering verification vehicles that will enable the company to assess the satellite bus and related subsystems, as well as the space-based and ground-based phased array technologies," SpaceX officials wrote in a submission to the FCC.

The first images of the Starlink testbeds were released during SpaceX's launch webcast, showing the satellites attached to a cylindrical carrier structure. After the launch, Musk tweeted a video showing the satellites deploying from the carrier module.

...

SpaceX plans to test the satellites' compatibility with six broadband ground receiving stations in California, Texas and Washington. Engineers also want to validate broadband connections between the satellites and mobile terminals.

"These (satellites) are meant to gather data in advance of deploying and operating a satellite constellation that will provide Internet service," said Tom Praderio, a SpaceX firmware engineer who provided commentary on the company's webcast of the launch.

"However, even if these satellites work as planned, we still have considerable technical work ahead of us to design and deploy a low Earth orbit satellite constellation," he said. "This system, if successful, would provide people in low to moderate population densities around the world with affordable high-speed Internet access, including many that have never had Internet access before."

In an application seeking FCC approval of the broadband fleet, SpaceX outlined a network that could include 4,425 satellites broadcasting Internet signals in Ku-band and Ka-band frequencies, a network originally proposed to the commission in 2016.

The Ku-band and Ka-band satellites would orbit between 689 miles and 823 miles (1,110 kilometers to 1,325 kilometers) above Earth.

SpaceX revealed plans for an expanded network in a regulatory filing last year. Besides the huge constellation of Ku-band and Ka-band satellites, SpaceX also proposed deploying 7,518 spacecraft transmitting broadband signals in V-band frequencies from low-altitude orbits around 210 miles (340 kilometers) above the planet.

That would make Starlink the biggest satellite fleet in operation.

The Ku-, Ka- and V-band combination "would provide both diverse geographic coverage and the capacity to support a wide range of broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, institutional, governmental and professional users in the United States and globally," SpaceX said in a proposal submitted to the FCC for approval.


The two Starlink prototypes before Thursday's launch. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has not set a timetable for completion of the network, but FCC Chairman Ajit Pai last week said he supported the plan.

"To bridge America's digital divide, we'll have to use innovative technologies," Pai said in a statement Feb. 14. "SpaceX's application — along with those of other satellite companies seeking licenses or access to the U.S. market for non-geostationary satellite orbit systems — involves one such innovation. Satellite technology can help reach Americans who live in rural or hard-to-serve places wh ere fiber optic cables and cell towers do not reach. And it can offer more competition wh ere terrestrial Internet access is already available."

SpaceX's chief competitor in the broadband market is OneWeb, founded by satellite industry entrepreneur Greg Wyler and backed by Airbus, Virgin, Qualcomm, New Delhi-based Bharti Enterprises, Hughes Network Systems — a subsidiary of EchoStar Corp. — Coca-Cola and Totalplay, a company owned by Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego.

OneWeb aims to build nearly 900 satellites in a factory located near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the first set of test craft will launch later this year on a Russian-made Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.

The FCC has already approved OneWeb's proposal to offer Internet-via-satellite services in the U.S. market, along with a more modest 117-satellite low Earth orbit communications network being designed by Canada-based Telesat. The regulatory body has also granted a request from Space Norway to operate two low-altitude telecom satellites to improve coverage over the Arctic.

Backers of the low-altitude "megaconstellations" say they will offer higher-speed, lower-latency broadband service than possible from bigger, conventional communications satellites positioned in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.

"Following careful review of this application by our International Bureau's excellent satellite engineering experts, I have asked my colleagues to join me in supporting this application and moving to unleash the power of satellite constellations to provide high-speed Internet to rural Americans," Pai said of SpaceX's proposal. "If adopted, it would be the first approval given to an American-based company to provide broadband services using a new generation of low-Earth orbit satellite technologies."

The next Falcon 9 launch is scheduled for early Sunday from Cape Canaveral with the Hispasat 30W-6 communications satellite, another Spanish-owned spacecraft.

The next SpaceX mission from Vandenberg Air Force Base is set for March 29 with 10 Iridium voice and data relay satellites.

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Michael Baylor‏ @nextspaceflight 14 мин. назад

I am increasingly confident that my predicted location of the fairing recovery attempt is accurate to within a couple miles. Mr. Steven is still in that area. They are presumably working to get the fairing out of the water and secured on the deck.