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A brief test of a Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday morning allowed SpaceX to launch a communications satellite from Cape Canaveral on Saturday night that will be used jointly by Telesat and APT Satellite of Hong Kong.
The Merlin 1D's nine main rocket engines ignited Wednesday at the Cape Canaveral Complex 40 launching platform at 10:00 am EDT (14:00 GMT) after SpaceX engineers filled the two-story Falcon 9 mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen.
SpaceX has confirmed the static fire test in a tweet a few minutes later.
Falcon 9's static fire test is complete – launching Sept. 8 Telstar 18 VANTAGE Pad 40 in Florida.
– SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 5, 2018
The fictional countdown on Wednesday morning took place without the satellite payload of the rocket on board. The next leg of the launch campaign will be lowering the Falcon 9 from its launch pad, and then returning the launcher to a hangar near the Florida Spaceport.
The hangar technicians will couple the mission payload – the Telstar 18 VANTAGE communications satellite – outside the Falcon 9's upper deck in the coming days, conduct a series of electrical and mechanical connectivity checks, and then will bring the rocket back to its seaside launch area on Saturday.
The four-hour launch window opens at 11:28 pm EDT Saturday (0328 GMT Sunday), after several delays that pushed back the flight last month.
A forecast released Wednesday by US Air Force 45 Squadron predicts a 60% probability of favorable conditions during the Saturday night launch window.
"Clouds and showers will gradually increase over the spaceport Friday and Saturday as a trough on the upper level will move west across Florida," forecasters wrote. "Low-level winds become more southerly during this period, reinforcing the threat of converging bandwidth. Launch time problems are cumulus clouds and thick clouds. Maximum upper level winds will be from the northeast at 20 knots to 40,000 feet. "
Isolated showers are expected to be in the area at launch, with scattered clouds at 2,500 feet and broken clouds at 15,000 and 25,000 feet. Good visibility, a temperature of about 78 degrees Fahrenheit and winds from 12 to 17 mph south-southeast are expected.
The rocket assigned to launch Telstar 18 VANTAGE is a newly built Falcon 9 Block 5. SpaceX's ocean landing platform departed Port Canaveral en route for a position in the Atlantic Ocean to recover the first leg of the Falcon 9 after Saturday night's shooting.
The Telstar 18 VANTAGE satellite, built by SSL in Palo Alto, California, will provide C-band and Ku-band communications services in the Asia-Pacific region from a geostationary orbit 35,800 kilometers above the equator.
The new satellite will be launched on an elliptical transfer orbit aboard the Falcon 9, then use its onboard propeller to climb into a circular orbit, where its orbital velocity will correspond to the Earth's rotational speed at 138 degrees east longitude.
Once Telstar 18 VANTAGE arrives at its operational position, it will begin a 15-year mission with broadband signals for the direct broadcast, video, marine and other telecommunications markets. Combining large regional beams and high-bandwidth spot beams, the satellite coverage area will extend from India and Pakistan west to Hawaii in the east.
The APT satellite – also called APSTAR – from Hong Kong will use 57.5% of the satellite's communication capacity, in exchange for 57.5% of the total cost of the mission, officials said. The Telesat 18 VANTAGE satellite, also known as APSTAR 5C, will replace the former Telstar 18 / APSTAR 5 spacecraft transported in orbit by a Sea Launch Zenit 3SL thruster in 2004.
In 2015, APSTAR agreed to pay $ 118.8 million for its share of the new Telstar 18 VANTAGE / APSTAR 5C satellite program, according to the company's filings with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This suggests that the total cost of the mission is approximately $ 206 million.
The agreement allows APSTAR to use an equivalent of 36.2 percent of all 63 transponders, the company said in a statement.
APSTAR operates five geostationary communications satellites, while Telesat, headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, has 16 geostationary telecommunications devices in its fleet, as well as an exploratory satellite for a low-orbit wideband network. .
"Telstar 18 VANTAGE is a high-end, highly flexible, state-of-the-art satellite that will provide a significant competitive advantage to customers meeting the demanding requirements of enterprise, public and broadcast users in Asia," Dan said. Goldberg, President of Telesat. and CEO, in a statement issued at the announcement of the new satellite program in 2015. "We are delighted to make this important addition to our global satellite fleet and, furthermore, pleased to continue our long and successful relationship with APSTAR Asian operator with whom we have been cooperating closely for more than ten years.
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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.
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