[ad_1]
SpaceX launched a secret payload into space for the US government’s spy satellite agency. On Saturday, the 30th launch of a rocket that will enter Earth orbit from platforms on the Florida Space Coast in 2020, Falcon 9 flight broke. an annual record of missions to reach orbit from Florida. spaceport that was maintained for 54 years.
It was the 31st large rocket launch from Florida’s Space Coast overall this year, including a high-altitude demonstration of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon abort system in January.
SpaceX recorded 25 launches from Florida this year, with 24 orbital missions, and the United Launch Alliance flew six times with its Atlas 5 and Delta 4-Heavy rocket families.
Prior to 2020, the previous record for launches from the Space Coast that reached orbit was 29, a mark set in 1966. There were 31 orbital launch attempts from Cape Canaveral that year, plus two suborbital test flights of the Saturn 1B launcher from the it was Apollo. for a total of 33 space launches from Florida in 1966, according to a launch log kept by Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks global satellite and launch activity.
A race to break that record will have to wait another year.
SpaceX’s second dedicated mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, and the company’s 26th and final flight of the year, took off at 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) on Saturday.
A 229-foot-tall or 70-meter Falcon 9 rocket gave the classified payload an eight-minute trip to orbit from platform 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Nine Merlin 1D engines ignited and activated the 1.2 million pound launcher from platform 39A at Kennedy Space Center, driving the Falcon 9 through scattered clouds to the northeast from the Florida Space Coast.
The kerosene-fueled launcher shut down its first-stage engines for nearly two and a half minutes of flight, allowing the thruster to roll over and begin a “recoil” maneuver by restarting some of its engines.
The thruster reversed course and made a supersonic descent back to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, where the rocket landed on a target landing in Landing Zone 1 just over eight minutes after lift-off.
The reusable amplifier, designated B1059, completed its fifth trip to space and vice versa. It was the 70th time SpaceX successfully recovered a Falcon thruster since it nailed the first intact landing on December 21, 2015, five years ago on Monday.
The exact purpose of the NRO payload on Saturday’s mission, codenamed NROL-108, was kept secret by the government spy satellite agency. SpaceX’s live broadcast of the launch focused on the return of the first stage to Cape Canaveral and ended the video live from the upper stage at the request of the NRO.
The NRO stated that the launch was a success in a tweet several hours after liftoff, concluding the intelligence agency’s sixth launch of the year.
It was the 26th launch of Falcon 9 by SpaceX alone this year, including 25 flights from Florida and one from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. SpaceX’s previous record for the most Falcon launches in a year was 21 in 2018.
“NROL-108 carries a national security payload designed, built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office,” an NRO spokesperson said in response to questions from Spaceflight Now. Additional details about the payload and its mission are protected. The name or names of the contractor or contractors associated with the construction of this payload are also protected. “
The NROL-108 mission did not appear on any public launch program until early October, when Spaceflight Now was the first to report the existence of the mission. At the time, the mission was scheduled for October 25, but the flight was delayed multiple times amid changes to SpaceX’s launch schedules and other NRO launch activities at Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 first stage has landed at Cape Canaveral, marking the 70th successful recovery of a Falcon thruster since the first landing five years ago on Monday. https://t.co/6EVsocdJ32 pic.twitter.com/BGM5GAeXCO
– Space flight now (@SpaceflightNow) December 19, 2020
SpaceX cleared an initial launch attempt for the NROL-108 mission on Thursday to assess slightly high pressure readings inside the Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Crews from Platform 39A lowered the rocket horizontally to inspect it before lifting it upright again on Friday night.
The NRO broke with the standard practice of seeking to launch commercially, outside of government-established contracting schemes.
A spokesperson for the NRO confirmed that the agency acquired launch services for the NROL-108 on its own, bypassing the US Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program.
“The NRO uses a variety of methods to acquire launch services in support of the agency’s aerial reconnaissance mission, to include partnering with the United States Space Force under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program,” said a spokesperson for the NRO.
“In some cases, the NRO uses alternative methods to purchase launch services after conducting a cumulative assessment of the satellite risk tolerance, required launch dates, available launch capabilities, and cost, all for the purpose of ensure satellites are safely delivered into orbit in a timely manner, ”the spokesperson said.
The National Security Space Launch program is used for the government’s most critical intelligence gathering and military satellites.
The NRO booked SpaceX for the launch of NROL-108 on a commercial basis, booking the flight in the SpaceX manifest similar to how a private satellite operator would purchase a trip. That generally costs less than a US government launch contract, which comes with added oversight and other added costs.
SpaceX’s previous dedicated NRO mission, NROL-76 in 2017, was also part of a commercial launch service organized between the spy satellite agency and Ball Aerospace, a satellite manufacturer based in Boulder, Colorado. Ball Aerospace booked the launch with SpaceX on behalf of the NRO and delivered the classified payload to the NRO after it was safely in orbit.
The commercial nature of the NRO’s launch contract with SpaceX gave the Federal Aviation Administration regulatory oversight of the mission, as if the Falcon 9 was launching a privately owned payload.
The launch was the 38th FAA-licensed commercial space launch of the year by a US company, surpassing the previous mark of 33 such missions in 2018. That number includes space launches from other US spaceports and flights from US-based Rocket Lab privately owned base in New Zealand.
“The future of this industry is no longer guesswork, forecasting, and wishful thinking,” said Wayne Monteith, FAA associate administrator for space transportation. “Accelerated growth has been demonstrated. It’s an increase in the cadence of steroids. “
“We have launched more commercial space launches in the last four years than in the previous 15 years combined,” Monteith said Tuesday in a virtual presentation at the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium 365 forum. “In 2011, we only had one commercial space launch.”
“Next year, we should easily exceed 50 commercial launches, and potentially more than 100 soon after,” Monteith said. “We see mega-constellations increasing and we see the beginnings of an exceptionally strong space tourism sector. We see initiatives for business endeavors outside the world. We see commercial companies that can return material from space. “
SpaceX will begin its 2021 launch campaign in early January, when a Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to send the Turksat 5A communications satellite into orbit on January 4 from platform 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Another Falcon 9 launch from Florida in mid-January will take dozens of small satellites on a shared-ride trade mission for numerous US and international customers.
The purpose of NROL-108 remains a mystery
Marco Langbroek, a Dutch archaeologist and satellite movement expert, said that information gleaned from airspace warnings about the orbit targeted by the NROL-108 mission reveals few ideas about the likely purpose of the payload.
The launch path to the northeast and the location of Falcon 9’s upper stage reentry over the Pacific Ocean suggest that the mission was expected to place its payload in an orbit tilted around 52 degrees relative to the equator, according to Langbroek.
The Falcon 9 reserved enough propellant in its first stage to return to a landing at Cape Canaveral, rather than aiming for an offshore landing on a SpaceX spacecraft. That indicated that the mission is likely targeting a relatively low orbit a few hundred miles above Earth, Langbroek wrote on its website, similar but not identical to the orbit of the NROL-76 mission in 2017.
The expected orbit for the NROL-108 mission does not match the known NRO fleet of optical, radar and signal intelligence satellites, expert analysts said.
A group of amateur satellite trackers will attempt to locate the NROL-108 payload after launch. The military does not publish orbital data on US national security satellites.
“It will be interesting to see which orbit NROL-108 will end up in,” Langbroek wrote. “As I have discussed with some launches earlier this year, the latest NRO launches appear to be ‘new’ types of payloads that are likely experimental / mission demonstrators, and entering ‘new’ types of orbits.”
“The character of the mission is a mystery: this seems to be something new again,” he wrote.
New blog post:
“NROL-108: another mystery launch perhaps similar to NROL-76 (USA 276)?” Https://t.co/yznJKJLuVr@SSC_NL pic.twitter.com/EQHZM26ykQ– Dr. Marco Langbroek (@Marco_Langbroek) December 15, 2020
Ted Molczan, a Canadian satellite observer, said Langbroek’s orbit estimate suggests that the NROL-108 payload will repeat ground cover approximately every three days.
“Ground tracks repeating at two to four day intervals are a common feature of NRO satellites,” Molczan told Spaceflight Now. “They allow a quick review of the targets, which is useful for reconnaissance.
Molczan cautioned that although observers and analysts can deduce information about NRO satellites through orbital information, optical characteristics and radio transmissions, the exact mission may remain secret.
“Although a lot can be deduced through analysis of orbits, optical characteristics and radio transmissions, the exact mission can remain secret until someone with inside knowledge leaks it to the media,” Molczan said.
Send an email to the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ EstebanClark1.
[ad_2]
