SpaceX is planning two Falcon Heavy launches for the U.S. space force in July and October, and United Launch Alliance, according to its military spokesman, has four national security space missions according to its 2021 schedule.
The Falcon Heavy missions are expected to be the fourth and fifth flights of SpaceX’s three-quarter heavy lifts. Both launches will take off from Route 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The first Space Force mission on a Falcon Heavy rocket this year is designated USSF-44. According to a Space Force spokesman, the mission was launched in July. The USSF-44 mission will be the fourth flight of a Falcon Heavy since its debut in February 2018.
The Falcon Heavy will deliver multiple military payloads to a high-altitude geosynchronous orbit on the USSF-44 mission. The upper stage of the rocket will fire several times to position the satellites more than 22,000 kilometers above the equator.
The upper-stage flight profile features a coastline lasting more than five hours between burns, making the USSF-44 mission one of SpaceX’s most demanding launches to date.
On the latest Falcon Heavy mission, which began in June 2019, the top stage of the rocket completed four burns over three and a half hours on a demonstration flight sponsored by the Air Force.
The intricate revolutions during the June mission last year had to place 24 satellite payloads in three different orbits. They also harnessed the capabilities of the Falcon Heavy and its Merlin upper engine before the Air Force entrusted the launcher with more critical and more expensive operational national security loads on future flights, such as the USSF-44 mission.
SpaceX won a contract for the USSF-44 launch in February 2019. In the request for proposals for the USSF-44 launch, the military told prospective launch providers that the combined mass of two payloads assigned to the mission is less than 8,200 pounds, or about 3.7 tons.
The Space Force has not said whether two more satellites have been booked on the USSF-44 mission, or that officials have added more secondary payloads since the 2019 allocation. One of the spacecraft during the USSF-44 launch is a microsatellite called TETRA 1, built by Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary headquartered in El Segundo, California.
Military officials said in a statement that the TETRA 1 satellite was created for “prototype missions and tactics, techniques and procedures in and around the Earth’s geosynchronous orbit.”
Another military launch on the Falcon Heavy, designated USSF-52, was not scheduled for October, according to the Space Force. Military officials have not yet announced any payloads during the USSF-52 launch, but the air force wrote in a draft contract call that the mission would deliver a heavy payload to a geostationary transfer orbit, an elongated path around the earth which is used as a download point. for many satellites en route to a circular geosynchronous orbit.
SpaceX has so far launched three Falcon Heavy rocket missions, all successful. SpaceX has seven confirmed Falcon Heavy missions in its backlog, including the two Space Force missions this year, and launches of a Viasat broadband communications satellite and NASA’s Psyche asteroid explorer, both in 2022. A single Falcon Heavy will also be the first two elements of NASA’s lunar space station Gateway in 2024 and two Falcon Heavy flights will strengthen Dragon XL cargo missions to the Gateway later in the 2020s.
The USSF-67 mission of the Space Force, which was awarded to SpaceX last year, may also start on a Falcon Heavy. But military officials did not confirm a rocket assignment for the mission.
The Falcon Heavy consists of three modified Falcon 9 boosters in the first phase connected together in a triple configuration. The rocket’s 27 Merlin main engines deliver about 5.1 million pounds of thrust at the ramp, more than any other rocket currently in use.
All of SpaceX’s FalX Heavy missions currently under contract will take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the company plans to build a vertical integration building and shelter to accommodate future Falcon Heavy cargo.
SpaceX will use three remaining drivers for the USSF-44 mission, according to the Space Force, and the challenging launch profile leaves no remaining propellant to restore the center of the Falcon Heavy. The core phase will be expanded during the launch, while the rocket’s two side amplifiers will be recovered on two SpaceX drones located along the east side of Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX has another publicly announced Space Force mission in its wake this year. A Falcon 9 rocket will launch from July 10 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the Army’s fifth GPS navigation satellite. The launch of the sixth GPS 3 satellite, also on a Falcon 9, has been delayed in 2022, the Space Force said.
United Launch Alliance has four military space missions planned this year.
A Delta 4 heavy rocket, the most powerful ULA launcher, is being prepared for the lifting of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as soon as this spring with a classified satellite cargo for the National Reconnaissance Office. The NROL-82 mission is one of four Delta 4 Heavy flights left before the rocket retired in 2023.
Three Space Force missions will be launched on ULA Atlas 5 rockets from Cape Canaveral this year.
The first launch of the Space Force, called STP-3, would be launched this month. An Atlas 5 rocket will launch two experimental military satellites into the geosynchronous orbit on the STP-3 mission, but one of the spacecraft experienced delays that caused it to miss its launch date in late February.
Officials are assessing new potential launch dates mid-year, according to Jim Reuter, head of NASA’s space technology board, which is conducting a laser communications experiment on the STP-3 mission.
The STP-3 mission will use the most powerful variant of the Atlas 5 rocket, known as the “551” configuration, with five fixed solid rocket boosters and a 5-meter-diameter payload.
In the May period, an Atlas 5 rocket with the fifth space-based infrared system, or SBIRS, will launch the satellite to detect missile launches that could threaten the United States. The SBIRS GEO 5 satellite, built by Lockheed Martin, will orbit an Atlas 5 “421” with a 4-meter boot hood and two solid rocket amplifiers.
Another Atlas 5 is expected to begin in August with the USSF-8 mission, which will deliver the fifth and sixth Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, or GSSAP, satellites in orbit.
The USSF-8 mission will use the Atlas 5-511 configuration with a 5-meter case and a single solid missile booster. This will be the first time that the “511” variant of the Atlas 5 has flown.
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