August 14, SpaceX has placed in orbit a new telecommunications satellite and again recovered the first stage of its launch vehicle. Other challenges await the US company by the end of the year.
Sunday at 5:26 UTC (1:26, Florida time), took off from not the LC-40 shooting from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on 28 th copy of the Falcon 9 SpaceX, the eighth in “Full Thrust” version. On board, the Telecommunications Relay JCSat-16 Japanese operator SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, leader in the Asia-Pacific region, with a fleet of sixteen operational satellites. The same model as the JCSat-14 onboard during the flight F24 on May 6, it was originally used as emergency device. However, following the postponement of the launch of Superbird-8/1 on the DSN-VA231 Ariane 5, it will eventually replace Superbird-B2 (launched in February 2000), on position 162 ° East. Built by Space Systems Loral, JCSat-16 is equipped with 36 transponders in C-band and 18 Ku-band transponders and weighs about 4,600 kg at launch. It has correctly been in post at the end of a mission of 32 minutes and 20 seconds. Meanwhile, 9 minutes and 34 seconds after liftoff, the first stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle returned to land smoothly on the autonomous barge “Of Course I Still Love You” positioned off the coast of Florida.
Watch again the on https://youtu.be/QZTCEO0gvLo
SpaceX was on Sunday launching his eighth of the year, placing on its transfer orbit 23 th geostationary communications satellite in December 2013 (of which two dual launches). Side recovery of the first stage of the Falcon 9, it was the eleventh attempt since January 2015 and the sixth success since December 2015 -the fourth at sea and the third during a GTO mission.
Tight schedule and impending floor reuse.
To meet its commitments to its customers, SpaceX has yet to make eleven or twelve launches before the end of the year, including three from the Vandenberg base in California. The next is scheduled as early as 3 or 4 September, on behalf of the Israeli operator Spacecom, with the payload Amos-6. It should be followed on 20 September by the orbiting of the first ten copies of the new constellation Iridium Next.
When the first launch reusing a first floor recovered theft, it could come in October or November, on the occasion of a mission for the European operator SES ( SES 10 or 11). Meanwhile, the 29 and 30 July, SpaceX performed an impressive demonstration of the robustness of its technology: its McGregor site, Texas, he was operated in static mode and for 150 seconds three times in less 36 hours, the floor that had been recovered from the F24 flight of 6 May, and had been wearing a “maximum damage” during his mission GTO …
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