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The first of two consecutive SpaceX planned launches on Sunday was canceled due to bad weather during pre-flight processing, but the company went ahead with plans to launch an Argentine remote sensing satellite on Sunday night.
The launch of the SAOCOM 1B radar observation satellite atop a Falcon 9 thruster with a previously flown first stage was scheduled for 7:18 pm EDT from Platform 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Also on board: two small hitchhiker satellites added to the flight under a “shared ride” arrangement.
The launch will mark Flight 92 of a Falcon 9 workhorse, SpaceX’s 100th overall, when five previous Falcon 1 flights are included along with three Falcon Heavy triple-core thruster launches.
Spacex
SpaceX had planned to launch two Falcon 9s just nine hours apart on Sunday, the shortest time between two orbital-class launches in the US since 1966. The double header fell into place after a dramatic last second “hot fire abort” Early Saturday from a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy rocket carrying a classified spy satellite from the National Reconnaissance Office.
Sunday’s flight plan was a Falcon 9 set to carry 60 Starlink internet relay satellites into space from historic platform 39A at Kennedy Space Center at 10:12 a.m. The SAOCOM 1B mission would do the same from the nearby Air Force station.
But the Starlink thruster was not removed from its hangar until early Sunday morning, and SpaceX later said in a tweet that the team had canceled the launch attempt “due to inclement weather during pre-flight operations.” The next opportunity to get the Starlinks off the ground is Tuesday at 9:29 am
Despite the Starlink undergrowth and somewhat dubious weather, SpaceX went ahead with preparations for the nightly launch of SAOCOM 1B. Meteorologists asked for a 40% chance of acceptable conditions.
The mission aims to put SAOCOM 1B into orbit around Earth’s poles, the first such flight from Florida since 1969.
To reach a polar orbit from Cape Canaveral, Falcon 9 will take off on a southbound trajectory and then do a dogleg maneuver once it leaves the Florida coast to double the trajectory more directly south. The flight path will take the rocket over Cuba.
In 1960, falling debris from a malfunctioning rocket allegedly killed a cow in Cuba, sparking protests across the island nation. All missions in polar orbit since 1969 have taken off from Vandenberg, where the rockets remain over the Pacific Ocean to orbit.
SpaceX initially planned to launch SAOCOM 1B from Vandenberg, but requested permission to move the flight to Cape Canaveral to alleviate processing problems on the ground.
The company presumably won government approval for the measure, in part due to the dogleg maneuver, which minimizes the flyover of populated areas, the high altitude of the rocket for when it reaches more remote populated areas, and because the Falcon 9 features a system. automated flight safety. AFTS is designed to quickly terminate a flight if an impending catastrophic problem is detected.
The 6,720-pound SAOCOM 1B requires a polar orbit to allow its cloud-penetrating radar to observe the entire planet as it rotates downward. The spacecraft will work in conjunction with an identical L-band radar mapper launched in 2018 together with the COSMO-SkyMed X-band satellites of Italy.
Targeting a 360-mile high orbit, the $ 600 million SOACOM system is designed to monitor soil moisture and a variety of other factors affecting the agricultural sector, collecting high-resolution data 24 hours a day, regardless. of cloud cover.
“One of the main objectives of the SAOCOM satellites is to provide information for the agricultural sector,” Raúl Kulichevsky, executive and technical director of CONAE, the Argentine space agency, told Spaceflight Now.
“One of the things that we develop is soil moisture maps, not only of the surface, but by taking advantage of the capabilities of the L-band we can measure soil moisture at 1 meter below the surface of the ground. So this it is very important information. “
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