[SatNews] “The successful insertion of the SES-8 satellite confirms the upgraded Falcon 9 launch vehicle delivers to the industry’s highest performance standards…”
Courtesy of SpaceX
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida – Today, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) successfully completed its first geostationary transfer mission, delivering the SES-8 satellite to its targeted 295 x 80,000 km orbit. Falcon 9 executed a picture-perfect flight, meeting 100 percent of mission objectives.
Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at 5:41 PM Eastern Time. Approximately 185 seconds into flight, Falcon 9’s second stage’s single Merlin vacuum engine ignited to begin a five minute, 20 second burn that delivered the SES-8 satellite into its parking orbit. Eighteen minutes after injection into the parking orbit, the second stage engine relit for just over one minute to carry the SES-8 satellite to its final geostationary transfer orbit. The restart of the Falcon 9 second stage is a requirement for all geostationary transfer missions. SpaceX's launch of SES-8 is notably the first commercial communications satellite to be launched from Cape Canaveral in four years.
A previous launch attempt on November 25 was called off after several technical glitches, including an issue with the rocket's first-stage liquid oxygen pressurization system. The company decided to skip a launch attempt on Monday to allow more time to recheck the rocket following a last-second abort on Thursday. An onboard computer automatically aborted launch seconds before liftoff on Thursday when it detected the first-stage engine wasn't ramping up thrust levels as quickly as expected. The rocket was returned to its processing hangar for inspections. Engineers discovered oxygen had gotten inside the ground-based engine igniter system.
"All known rocket anomalies resolved. Will spend another day rechecking to be sure," company founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk posted on Twitter on Monday.
“The successful insertion of the SES-8 satellite confirms the upgraded Falcon 9 launch vehicle delivers to the industry’s highest performance standards,” said Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Designer of SpaceX today, Tuesday. “As always, SpaceX remains committed to delivering the safest, most reliable launch vehicles on the market today. We appreciate SES’s early confidence in SpaceX and look forward to launching additional SES satellites in the years to come.”
Today’s mission marked SpaceX’s first commercial launch from its central Florida launch pad and the first commercial flight from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in over five years. SpaceX has nearly 50 launches on manifest, of which over 60 percent are for commercial customers worth about $4 billion, including 10 more International Space Station cargo runs for NASA.
This launch also marks the second of three certification flights needed to certify the Falcon 9 to fly missions for the U.S. Air Force under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program. When Falcon 9 is certified, SpaceX will be eligible to compete for all National Security Space (NSS) missions.
The SES-8 satellite aboard the Falcon 9, for example, is expected to fly more than 22,300 miles above Earth and provide television, cable, broadband and other services to customers in India, China, Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia.
SpaceX is attempting to break the monopoly that United Launch Alliance which is a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has on launching reconnaissance and communications satellites for the U.S. military. The test involves three successful flights of the Falcon booster to then compete for the military's launch business, and with, hopefully, tomorrow's launch of the SES satellite.
In the 1980s, the United States dominated the commercial launch industry, now worth about $6.5 billion a year, according to a report by the Satellite Industry Association trade organization, whereas in 2012 the revenue from the global satellite industry was $190 billion.
