Launch Roundup: Falcon Heavy Returns with GOES-U, Firefly Launches an Alpha – NASASpaceFlight.com

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After a week in which Tropical Storm Alberto delayed the Florida launch schedule in high seas, wind and rain, SpaceX hopes to get back on track this week with launches planned for all three active Falcon launch pads, including a Valk heavy.

By the end of the week, the Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency (JAXA) will attempt to conduct the third launch of the H3 rocket from JAXA’s Tanegashima launch site in Japan. Additionally, Firefly’s Alpha returns with its first mission of the year from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California.

Given the reconfiguration of the platform for the Falcon Heavy launch from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX has not been able to schedule any Falcon 9 launches from this platform since May 24. SpaceX will therefore attempt to make maximum use of the other east coast pad, Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), at the adjacent Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The bad weather may not be over for Florida just yet. With hurricane season approaching and more tropical storms on the way, launch schedules are likely to be affected. Weather also impacts maritime assets as salvage ships must avoid storms, causing further disruption and delays.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 9-2

A SpaceX Falcon 9, launched on Sunday, June 23 at 8:47 PM PDT (Monday, June 24 at 03:47 UTC) from VSFB’s SLC-4E, lifted the second batch of Group 9 Starlink v2 Mini satellites. The drone ship Of course I still love you supported the mission and was stationed approximately 600 km downstream. The booster landed on the drone ship after completing the ascent, second stage separation and a controlled reentry, using an entry burn to slow the descent rate and a landing burn to bring it to a soft landing.

The mission was launched on a southeasterly trajectory, placing the payload of twenty satellites into an orbit at an angle of 53 degrees. Thirteen of the Starlinks have Direct-to-Cell capabilities, a breakthrough feature that allows a cell phone to communicate directly with the satellite when no other service exists.

B1075, the booster for this mission, flew after a 97-day turnaround, with this mission being the 11th flight. Previously the booster flew with Starlink Group 2-4, Transport and Tracking Tranche 01, Starlink Group 2-9, Starlink Group 5-7, Starlink Group 6-20, Starlink Group 7-3, Starlink Group 7-6, SARah 2 and 3, Starlink Group 7-12, Starlink Group 7-16 and USA 350 and 351.

The booster has flown all its previous missions from Vandenberg and first flew on January 19, 2023. It has previously landed at Landing Zone 4 twice and at Landing Zone 4 eight times. Of course I still love you.

SpaceX Falcon Heavy | GOES-U

The tenth flight of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will take place on Tuesday, June 25 at 5:16 PM EDT (9:16 PM UTC). Launching from the historic LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center, Falcon Heavy will carry the GOES-U weather satellite to a geostationary transfer orbit, flying due east to take full advantage of the Earth’s rotation to gain additional performance.

With a payload capacity of more than 5,000 kg, the central core of the Falcon Heavy, B1087, will be expanded, as it cannot retain enough propellant to land softly on a droneship. The two side boosters, B1072 and B1086, will perform a landing to the launch site in landing zones 1 and 2 respectively. All three boosters are flying for the first time.

Ceres 1S | Unknown load

China’s Galactic Energy company will launch a four-stage Ceres 1S rocket on Thursday, June 26 at 05:30 UTC. The mission will be a sea launch from coastal waters adjacent to the Haiyang Spaceport. The payload for the mission is currently unknown. This will be the fourth Ceres 1 launch in 2024.

Firefly Alpha FLTA005 | ELaNa 43 “The sound of summer”

Firefly FLTA005 static fire. (Credit: Firefly Aerospace)

On Wednesday, June 26 at 9:03 PM PDT (Thursday, June 27 at 04:03 UTC), Firefly Aerospace’s two-stage Alpha rocket will make its first flight of 2024 from SLC-2W at VSFB carrying an array of cubesats. revolution.

This mission is part of the Venture-Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 Contract between NASA and Firefly. The eight satellites in the payload are mostly university-built cubesats, while three are built by NASA. Venture-Class is intended to give colleges and other small-scale businesses better access to space. The university-built payloads are selected through NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI), intended to support such projects, and each flight is given a collective mission name in the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) range, with this flight forming ELaNa 43 .

NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston flies two R5 satellites, S4 and S2 2.0. These small, free-flying devices are built using commercially available components (COTS) and are intended to test their suitability as low-cost inspection equipment in space.

NASA Ames Research Center also has a satellite on board – TechEdSat 11 (TES 11) – the latest and largest version of NASA Ames’ exo-braking experiment, which uses an umbrella-like device to increase a spacecraft’s drag and allow it to exit safely to get the space. orbit in a controlled return.

The remaining satellite payloads contain small experimental features designed by students. A new experiment takes place aboard CatSat, a 6h CubeSat built by the University of Arizona. CatSat will nearly achieve a sun-synchronous orbit and use it to stay in constant daylight. The cubesat will be operational for approximately six months and will perform high-resolution Earth imaging, use HAM radio signal monitoring to measure the ionosphere and test an inflatable antenna.

This launch livestream is hosted by Firefly in partnership with NSF.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-3

A new batch of Starlink v2 Mini satellites will be launched into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster. The mission will launch from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday, June 27 at 7:00 a.m. EDT (11:00 a.m. UTC).

Flying northeast, the booster will burn for about 150 seconds before separating from the second stage, which will then fire its single vacuum Merlin engine to launch the payload into an orbit inclined at 53 degrees.

The booster returns and lands on the autonomous drone ship Just read the instructions stationed about 600 km downstream of the trail.

JAXA H3-22S | ALOS-4/Daichi-4

The third launch attempt for JAXA’s H3 rocket will take place from the Yoshinobu Launch Complex at the JAXA Tanegashima Space Center, Japan, on Sunday, June 30 at 03:06 UTC. The first H3 mission, the launch of Daichi-3, failed after a failure in the second stage.

This payload – the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4) – was built at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Kamakura plant and is named ‘Daichi 4’. The Japanese word ‘daichi’ means wisdom of the earth and part of a growing family.

The booster for this mission is a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H3 with the designation 22S, which indicates two LE-9 engines, two solid rocket boosters (SRB) and a shorter payload fairing. It has been reported that this mission was originally expected to fly on an H3-30, a three-engine first stage without SRBs. However, the H3-30 has some delay, which still requires engines and static fire testing. The previous flight showed that the H3-22 was powerful enough to lift this load.

The previous launch of an H3-22. (Credit: JAXA)

The LE-9 engines used in the first stage use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants and the expander-bleed cycle method of engine cooling, in which the combustion chamber is cooled by cryogenic liquid fuel. The cooling process causes the fuel to change phase into a gas, which is then used to power the turbine pumps, pushing more fuel and oxidizer into the engines. This is believed to be the first successful use of the expander bleed cycle in a dual fuel engine.

The second stage has a single LE-5B engine, using the same liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants as the first stage.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink group 8-9

A new batch of Starlink v2 Mini satellites will launch from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral on Sunday, June 30 at 3:11 a.m. EDT (07:11 UTC). Early indications suggest a northeasterly trajectory, with the support droneship based 618 km away, where the booster will land upon completion of the launch.

The timing of this launch suggests another ambitious turnaround for the SLC-40. The current record for path completion time is two days, 19 hours and 40 minutes, set just a few days ago by the Starlink Group 10-2 mission.

(Main image: Falcon Heavy on top of LC-39A. Credit: Sawyer Rosenstein for NSF)

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