A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket thundered into space from Cape Canaveral and deployed a Turkish communications satellite on Thursday night, the first of more than 40 Falcon rocket missions planned from launch blocks in Florida and California this year.
The rapid cadence of launches in 2021, if achieved, would break SpaceX’s record of 26 Falcon 9 flights last year, resisting the pace of U.S. launches in the early decades of the space age.
The first launch at the gate was a Falcon 9 mission to deliver the Turksat-built Turksat 5A communications satellite into orbit.
The Falcon 9 did so on Thursday night just after a delay of more than 45 minutes to assess the readiness of a tracking station in Gabon. The launch eventually went without the tracking antenna, and the Falcon 9 ignited its nine Merlin 1D main engines to fire off Route 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Station, Thursday at 21:15 EST (0215 GMT).
After the eastern departure from Cape Canaveral, the Falcon 9 shook off its first stage elevation for about two and a half minutes in flight, before beginning to descend to a SpaceX drone parked approximately 650 kilometers east of Cape Canaveral. in the Atlantic Ocean.
While the first phase booster aimed a vertical landing on the floating drone, two SpaceX vessels were located in lower waters to retrieve the Falcon 9’s two-piece payload.
The Falcon 9 booster nailed its landing on the drone ship “Just Read The Instructions” in the Atlantic Ocean, about eight and a half minutes after takeoff, and completed the reusable rocket’s fourth voyage to space and back. An update on the crest attempt is not immediately available at SpaceX.
Meanwhile, the Falcon 9’s top-of-the-line single-use phase carried out two engine fires before the Turksat 5A spacecraft was released into an elliptical ‘super-synchronous’ transfer orbit about 33 minutes after takeoff.
U.S. military tracking data indicated that the Falcon 9 rocket released Turksat 5A in an orbit between 177 miles (286 kilometers) and 34,000 miles (55,000 kilometers) in altitude, with an inclination of 17.66 degrees.
Turkish officials confirmed on Thursday night that ground crews had received the first radio signals from the Turksat 5A after the launch, enabling drivers to begin health verifications and after launch.
Turksat 5A, with a launch weight of about 3,400 kilograms, will deploy its power-generating solar panels and articulate pods containing plasma tractors, which slowly orbit the satellite’s orbit at a geostationary altitude more than 22,000 miles across the equator. At that height, Turksat 5A will orbit the earth at the same rate as the planet rotates.
The orbital phase of the mission will last approximately four months. The electric propellers are more fuel efficient than ordinary liquid-powered rocket engines, but deliver less thrust.
The more efficient electric propellers will enable Turksat 5A to maintain its position in orbit for more than 30 years, according to Airbus the lifespan of many large communications satellites.
The satellite will be in use by the equator at 31 degrees east longitude by the middle of the year, where its 42 Ku band transponders Turksat customers in Turkey, the Middle East, Europe, large parts of Africa, the Mediterranean, the Aegean Sea, will reach. and the Black Sea, the company says.
According to Hasan Huseyin Ertok, deputy general manager of the company, Turksat 5A becomes the most powerful satellite in Turksat’s fleet. It will also help secure Turkish frequency rights at the 31-degree east slot, where a satellite has not been owned since 2010.
Turksat awarded Airbus and SpaceX contracts to build and launch Turksat 5A and Turksat 5B satellites in November 2017 following a meeting between SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Turksat 5B satellite, which will house a Ka-band payload, will be launched from Cape Canaveral in the second half of this year.
‘Our main focus is Turkey, so it’s focused on Turkey, but the whole of (Europe) Europe, most of North Africa, and we’re going all the way to Kazakhstan in the east. and in the Africa region we have most of sub-Saharan Africa and also South Africa, ”Ertok said about Turksat 5A’s coverage area.
“We can provide satellite services to anyone in the coverage area,” he said. “It could be a data service, which means you bring data from one point to another, or it could be a TV broadcasting service.”
While Turksat sells services to commercial customers, the Turkish government is a key customer for the company. Turksat satellites have supported a series of Turkish civilian and military operations.
Ertok said Turksat 5A would provide a “better service with a better price for our customers to our government.”
“So it’s going to be an important satellite for us and for our future,” he said.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is preparing for its next Falcon 9 launch, which is planned for mid-January from Cape Canaveral. The mission, called SpaceX Transporter 1, will deliver numerous small satellites for commercial and government to orbit a launch pad.
Two more Falcon 9 launches with SpaceX’s own Starlink broadband satellites are scheduled for later in January or early February.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, said in October that in 2021 the company planned as many as 48 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions from three separate booklets at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. .
SpaceX officials have set an ambition to launch groups of Starlink Internet satellites as often as every two weeks, when drivers may interrupt a flight to the Falcon 9 Manifesto.
In addition to Starlink missions, SpaceX has at least 20 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy flights for external customers this year.
These include two Falcon 9 launches with Crew Dragon missions – flown under contract to NASA – to transport four astronauts on six-month expeditions to the International Space Station. A shorter commercial Crew Dragon mission is also planned to be launched in late 2021 with Axiom, a private space company, transporting four paying passengers to and from the space station.
SpaceX also plans to launch up to three automatic dragon transmissions to the space station in 2021, and an asteroid probe and an X-ray space telescope for NASA.
There are also at least two flights with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, which is planned with the US military payloads this year.
Send an email to the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.