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Shooting a haze of fog on California's central coast, a Falcon 9 went into orbit Wednesday with 10 additional satellites for the Iridium voice and data relay constellation, pushing the upgraded network to its term. The first launcher of the rocket.
The 22 meter high launcher turned on her nine main Merlin engines after a trouble-free countdown and took off from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base at 4 am. : 39: 30 PDT (7:39:30 EDT, 11:39 GMT).
Rolling 1.7 million pounds of thrust, the thin two-stage launcher facing south of Vandenberg, piercing a low-level marine layer After take-off, the first-stage engine shut down for about two minutes and a half after take-off. The high-pressure nitrogen-powered boosters pulsate the round booster as a subset of the nine main engines of the flaming rocket for a pair of back and forth burns to guide the vehicle toward the vessel SpaceX drone nearly 150 miles (235 kilometers) from Vandenberg in the Pacific Ocean
on the first leg slowed down the booster for the landing, as four legs stretched moments before landing on the ship. SpaceX rocket recovery named "Just Read the Instructions."
SpaceX has confirmed a successful landing – the 27th time the company has recovered one of its John Insprucker, the main investigator of SpaceX, said that a nearby boat designed to catch half of the Falcon 9's payload fairing was unable to recover the shroud due to rough seas and unfavorable winds.
"The recovery vessel confirmed that we had bad weather in the Pacific with this wind shear," Insprucker said on the webcast of SpaceX's mission. "They saw the payload fairing go down, but they could not catch it in the net.We will continue to try to do it in the future by learning to bring back the fairings and then reuse them. "
To reduce launch costs, SpaceX aims to recover and reuse the payload fairing that protects the satellite from aerodynamic and meteorological forces in flight. the two-part rocket as a skip, and both parties carry guidance systems, tiny cold-gas thrusters and parafoils to bring them back from Earth to Earth
The attempt to recover the fairing was purely a goal Wednesday's flight, and the Falcon 9 engine continued to orbit the target.Iranidium communication satellites attached to a specially designed multiple charge distributor
Two shots from the second phase of Falcon 9 placed the satellites in an orbit on the target about 388 miles (625 kilometers) above the Earth. The upper floor released each of the 1,896-pound (860-kilogram) satellites one by one over a 15-minute deployment sequence, and the final deployment of the Iridium satellite ended nearly 72 minutes after the lift-off.
Earth from the rocket through the ground stations showed some of the satellites flying off the top floor when the Falcon 9 was sailing over Africa and the Middle East.
Matt Desch, general manager of Iridium, said: Space and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems – registered with their ground stations shortly after their arrival in orbit. The acquisition of the signal confirmed that the 10 spacecraft were alive after their journey in space.
With Wednesday's mission, SpaceX has delivered 65 satellites in orbit for Iridium on seven launches since January 2017. Iridium still has a reserved mission with SpaceX for another Vandenberg take-off later this year with another 10 spacecraft aboard .
"This update of the historical constellation is a far-reaching launch," Desch said in a statement. "We know our partners are just as excited about the new network that we are finishing up and how it will bring the full power of the Iridium Next constellation to life."
"We have come a long way . Desch said:
The Iridium Next network will replace the company's aging fleet of telecommunications satellites, which provides global coverage for phone calls, messaging, badet tracking and data relay.
The first-generation Block 1 Iridium satellites, built by Lockheed Martin, were launched in the late 1990s and early 2000s for seven-year missions. Almost all of the Block 1 satellites survived their design, and the upgraded Iridium Next satellites are designed to last at least 15 years.
The $ 3 billion Iridium Next network will offer high bandwidth broadband connections, enhanced features and 3G equivalent cellular phone services for the group of about one million subscribers. Iridium, a list of customers including the US Army, oil and gas companies, air and sea operators, and mining and construction contractors.
Satellites launched Wednesday will join plan 5 of the Iridium constellation, which includes 66 active spacecraft over six orbital planes, providing global coverage. The network operates using Ka-band inter-satellite radio links, allowing communications traffic to travel from space-to-space ships worldwide without going through a ground station.
Each spacecraft propels itself into a higher orbit at an altitude of 476 miles (780 kilometers), maneuvering alongside a Block 1 satellite before the controllers at the center of operations. Iridium in Leesburg, Virginia, switch relays from the old spacecraft to the new one.
called a slot exchange, is the point at which an Iridium Next satellite joins the network.
Desch said Wednesday that more than 80 percent of the traffic on the Iridium network is currently going through one of the company's next-generation satellites. This figure will reach more than 90% over the next six weeks, when the spacecraft will be operational Wednesday,
Each Iridium Next satellite also hosts an aircraft tracking transceiver built by Harris Corp. , led by an Iridium subsidiary named Aireon, will become operational once at least 66 Iridium Next spacecraft in space.
Aireon said in a press release on Wednesday that the aircraft tracking system will go into service later this year. become available to air traffic controllers in Canada. The Aireon system is designed to provide global aircraft tracking services, replacing terrestrial radars that do not cover the oceans and other parts of the world.
Operational trials using the Aireon service on the busy North Atlantic Corridor will begin next year. In addition to the Canadian Air Traffic Control Organization, air traffic authorities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Italy and some parts of Africa plan to use Aireon. The Federal Aviation Administration is testing the Aireon service for the potential integration of the satellite tracking capability of the system into the US airspace.
"We are approaching the finish line," said Don Thoma, CEO of Aireon. . "Perhaps the most exciting though is that the system has worked beyond expectations, resulting in even greater coverage redundancy than originally expected.We are seeing double coverage and, in many cases, triple redundancy. of our payloads even before the constellation is complete.With this seventh successful launch, we are now preparing to enter a new era for the aviation industry. "
Most Iridium Satellites Next are also equipped with ship tracking antennas for exactEarth, a Canadian company.
launches with SpaceX in 2010 with a contract at the time of officials estimated at nearly $ 500 million, then the The most lucrative commercial launch agreement ever signed The first version of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which has long since retired, had only realized a single flight test when I ridium has launched launches with the company.
In a tweet after the launch Wednesday, Desch said that other bidders considered by Iridium officials.
"Thank you for taking a chance on SpaceX so many years ago! In the expectation of using the new Iridium constellation, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, tweeted in response to Desch
Iridium has ordered 81 satellites from Thales Alenia Space and Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, formerly known as the Orbital ATK.Two of the spacecraft have been designated spares at ground and could be launched later.
Wednesday's launch was the third mission using a first step based on SpaceX's improved "Block 5" version of the Falcon 9 rocket. This was the second Falcon 9 launch in one. little more than three days, after a Sunday morning take off from Cape Canaveral with the Telstar 19 VANTAGE communication satellite.
The next SpaceX launch is another Florida mission – August 4th with the Merah Putih communications satellite for Tel kom Indonesia The launch window August 4 opens at 1:19 EDT (0519 GMT)
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