A large new satellite to beam SiriusXM radio programming in North America went into orbit on Sunday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to replace an aging broadcasting station launched more than 15 years ago from Cape Canaveral.
SiriusXM’s SXM7 spacecraft, built by Maxer in Palo Alto, California, is the first of two new pay-generation digital broadcasting satellites ready to join the company’s fleet next month.
About 15,000 pounds (about 7 metric tons) of satellites took off from the Pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at the top of the Falcon 9 rocket at 12:30 a.m. Sunday.
On a smooth route from the Florida Space Coast into the sky into the King into the sky, the 229-foot tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket surpassed the speed of sound in about a minute and then let its first stage booster go two-and-a-half minutes into flight.
By restarting its Merlin’s main engine, the first phase also guided itself to land in the Atlantic Ocean on the “Just Read Instruction” drone of the SpaceX drone, located a hundred miles east of Cape Canaveral. This successful recovery marked the seventh trip in space and back for the SpaceX Booster, known in the company’s rocket inventory as the B1051.
Two SpaceX boats were also dispatched to recover two parts of the Falcon 9’s clamshell-like payload ferrying, which stripped the rocket’s nose a few minutes after the liftoff.
The single-use-upper stage of the Falcon 9, meanwhile, operated in orbit with the SXM7 satellite. The first fire from the upper phase placed the spacecraft in initial parking orbit and the commercial satellite was moved into an elliptical “sub synchronous” transfer orbit after the mission resumed in about 26 minutes.
The rocket was aimed at an orbit extending more than 12,000 miles (20,000 kilometers) from its highest point on Earth. SpaceX said the Falcon 9 delivered its satellite passenger into proper orbit.
In the live video stream from the rocket, the 27-foot-tall (8-meter) SXM7 spacecraft was shown in Africa apart from the upper stage of the Falcon 9.
Maxer, the maker of the spacecraft, confirmed that the satellite was healthy after its launch on Sunday.
Maxer said the satellite lengthens the solar array that generates its power immediately after it reaches space. As expected, the ground teams at Maxar also made contact with the satellite.
“Next, the SXM7 will start firing its thrusters to begin its final geometry orbit journey,” Maxer said.
The maneuver will propel the SXM7 more than 22,000 miles (approximately 36,000 kilometers) to the operational perch in geographic orbit. In that orbit, the spacecraft will orbit the planet at the same rate as it orbits the Earth, giving SXM7 a view of America 24 hours a day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The satellite will provide SiriusXM’s consistent, reliable delivery of audio dio entertainment and information services to United States customers, and will expand SiriusXM’s coverage area in Canada and the Caribbean over the coming years, SiriusXMA said in a statement. “The SXM7 will deliver the highest power density on the orbit of any commercial satellite, send more than 8,000 watts of content across the continents of the US, Canada, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, increasing signal strength and reach for SiriusXM.”
Once in geostationary orbit, the SXM7 satellite – based on Maxer’s 1300-series spacecraft design – will transmit radio signals to receivers on rotating vehicles with a large S-band antenna made by L3 Harris.
The SXM7 expects the XM3 radio broadcast satellite to rotate at 85 degrees west longitude. The Boeing-built XM3 satellite was launched in the morning in 2005 from the C launch Zenit 3 SL rocket.
The launch of the SXM7 was scheduled for earlier this year, but problems encountered during spacecraft testing in the Mixer delayed the mission. SpaceX canceled a launch attempt to conduct an additional ground system test on Friday.
SiriusXMA said on Sunday that it has five satellites in its active fleet, with the XM 3 being the oldest still in operation.
The launch of the SXM7 and a twin satellite called the SXM8, which is also on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket – will increase SiriusXM’s services by at least 2036, the company said in a statement.
The launch of SiriusXM’s SXM7 satellite caps a busy week for SpaceX.
On December 6, SpaceX launched its first upgraded cargo dragon spacecraft from the Pad 39 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The Space Tomated Supply Ship – a new shape based on Sports Upgrades and SpaceX’s human-rated crew Dragon Capsule – arrived at the International Space Station on Monday, December 7 for successful docking.
Meanwhile, SouthX Texas SpaceX teams began a test flight on Wednesday of the company’s next pay-generation Starship vehicle. The 164-foot-tall (50-meter) prototype rocket flew at an airliner powered by a methane-fueled Raptor engine, then guided the descent toward the landing pad at SpaceX’s testing facility in Boca Chika, Texas. Boundary.
The starship rocket performed a dramatic flip maneuver to set up for landing, but the vehicle exploded into a fireball as the crash landing. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, called the test flight a success.
The reusable starship could eventually carry more than 100 tons of cargo into space, and take people to the moon, Mars and other deep places.
With the launch of the SXM7, SpaceX has completed 25 successful Falcon 9 missions so far in 2020.
One more launch is pending on SpaceX’s schedule this year. A Falcon 9 rocket is set to explode from Pad 39 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center just before 9 a.m. Thursday for the U.S. government’s reconnaissance satellite agency, the National Reconnaissance Office.
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