Spacex Is Launching One Of Its Most Complex Missions To Date Spaceflight Now

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Starlink 4-2 mission will launch SpaceX’s next batch of 34 Starlink Internet satellites and a payload for the AST SpaceMobile space mobile broadband network. Follow us on Twitter.

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A reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 booster completed its record 14th spaceflight after blasting off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 9:20 p.m. EDT Saturday (0120 GMT Sunday). The mission is billed as one of SpaceX’s most complex launches to date, with the goal of deploying 34 Starlink spacecraft and a test bed satellite for AST SpaceMobile’s space-based cellular broadband network. The rocket’s upper stage will fire its engines five times Saturday night — four burns to deploy AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 satellite and 34 Starlink payloads into two distinct orbits, then a final maneuver to drive the upper stage back into Earth’s atmosphere for a catastrophic re-entry. The five engine firings from the Falcon 9 upper stage will be the most ever on a SpaceX mission, surpassing the previous record by one. And the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that will fly Saturday night will become the leader of the SpaceX fleet. The first stage, called B1058, is a historic part of SpaceX’s rocket family. It debuted on May 30, 2020, with the launch of SpaceX’s first astronaut mission on a Crew Dragon spacecraft. The booster landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after the crew launched in 2020. It has flown 12 times since then, carrying a South Korean military satellite into space and launching a resupply mission to the International Space Station, two Transporter rideshare small satellite missions and eight Starlink missions. Saturday night’s launch from pad 39A is the first of two Falcon 9s that SpaceX is preparing for liftoff in quick succession. Another Falcon 9 rocket is at Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Station, a few miles south of Kennedy, to carry 54 Starlink satellites into orbit as soon as Sunday night. SpaceX launched two of its rocket landing pads from Port Canaveral into the Atlantic Ocean. The boosters flying Saturday and Sunday will target landings on each of the drone ships located a few hundred miles northeast of Cape Canaveral. SpaceX touched down the Falcon 9 at pad 39A on Friday amid ongoing construction work to prepare the coastal launch pad as a future home base for SpaceX’s massive Super Heavy reusable booster and Starship rocket. Ground crews vertically lifted the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 early Saturday at pad 39A, less than 12 hours before lifting another Falcon 9 upright at pad 40. AST SpaceMobile’s BlueWalker 3 satellite was mounted on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle adapter inside a SpaceX payload processing facility at Cape Canaveral. Credit: AST SpaceMobile The 34 Starlink satellites for Saturday night’s mission are accompanied by BlueWalker 3, a prototype for a planned fleet of spacecraft built and owned by Texas-based AST SpaceMobile. AST SpaceMobile’s test satellite will deploy an array of antennas in low Earth orbit covering an area of ​​693 square feet (about 64 square meters), larger than a standard studio apartment. AST SpaceMobile aims to deploy additional spacecraft in 2023 to begin building an operational network designed to connect consumer cell phones via satellites. “The launch of BlueWalker 3 is the culmination of many efforts by our engineers to let us test the connection of the phone in your pocket, without modifications to the phone, directly with one of our satellites in space,” said Abel Avellan, president and CEO of AST SpaceMobile, in a statement. “This revolutionary technology supports our mission to close the connectivity gaps faced by more than 5 billion mobile subscribers today who move in and out of coverage, and to bring mobile broadband to the roughly half of the world’s population that remains unconnected. We want to close the gap between the digital haves and have-nots. BlueWalker 3 rides into the top position inside the Falcon 9 payload fairing. The Falcon 9 upper stage will perform two engine burns before deploying the roughly 3,300-pound (1.5 metric ton) BlueWalker 3 satellite to an altitude of about 318 miles (513 km). Separation of BlueWalker 3 is scheduled approximately 50 minutes after liftoff. Two more engine burns from the Falcon 9 upper stage will propel the rocket into a slightly lower orbit for deployment of 34 Starlink satellites in about T++ 2 hours and 4 minutes. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, said Saturday night’s launch will be “one of our most complex missions.” “BlueWalker 3 will be the largest commercially deployed low Earth orbit communications array ever,” said Scott Wisniewski, AST SpaceMobile chief strategy officer. “It is 693 square feet and is designed to test our mobile broadband architecture directly on mobile. “We are a company founded on the desire to create mobile broadband directly from space,” said Wisniewski. “We’ve been at it since 2017. And this satellite is designed to connect directly to cellphones, regular cellphones, unmodified cellphones on the ground, and we’ll be testing that in the coming months.” BlueWalker 3’s antenna array during a ground deployment test. Credit: AST SpaceMobile Sometime in the first two months after launch, assuming BlueWalker 3 works well, ground controllers will send the command to the spacecraft to deploy its array of antennas. The antenna consists of 148 individual sections, each with its own antenna elements, connected together by mechanical hinges, according to Wisniewski. “The unfolding process itself is pretty simple,” Wisniewski said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. “Basically, we compressed the satellite into a cube and it opens up in two dimensions using stored energy in the hinges that have packed it together. And what opens up is a series of antenna elements pointing down to Earth and solar elements pointing towards the sun. “The key in all deployments is to keep it as simple as possible and keep it as dumb as possible,” Wisniewski said. “What the James Webb Telescope did was amazing. But this level of complexity, we believe, breeds potential bugs. And if you can avoid it, you do. We’ve had, over the years, many more complex designs and in the future, there are many cool ways to do this. But in the end, only simple mechanical hinges were the best way to risk it. “For us, the rollout … will be a critical milestone,” Wisniewski said. “And after that, we’ll calibrate and then we’ll start making phone calls.” AST SpaceMobile is backed by venture capital and investment from Vodafone, mobile tower operator American Tower and Japanese mobile operator Rakuten. The company has agreements with Samsung, Nokia and mobile network operators such as Vodafone, AT&T and Orange to test the compatibility of the space mobile network with existing mobile phones. BlueWalker 3 will demonstrate AST SpaceMobile’s technology with more than 10 mobile network operators on six continents. “Our goal is to calibrate their networks so we can connect to them,” Wisniewski said. If all goes well, the company plans to launch the first five operational satellites in late 2023, likely on another SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. AST SpaceMobile plans to eventually deploy 168 satellites. “This is all part of our plan to build 168 satellites worldwide,” Wisniewski said. ROCKET: Falcon 9 (B1058.14) PAID LOAD: 34 Starlink satellites (Starlink 4-2) and BlueWalker 3 LAUNCH LOCATION: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida START DATE: September 10, 2022 START TIME: 9:10:10 p.m. EDT (0110:10 GMT) WEATHER FORECAST: 60% chance of acceptable weather. Low risk of upper level winds. Low risk of adverse conditions for recall recovery RECOVERY AID: ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas’ drone ship east of Charleston, South Carolina LAUNCH AZIMUTH: Northeast TARGET ORBIT: About 318 miles (513 km) for BlueWalker 3. 201 miles by 207 miles (324 km by 334 km). Slope 53.2 degrees LAUNCH SCHEDULE:

T+00:00: Take off T+01:12: Maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q) T+02:32: First Stage Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) T+02:35: Scene separation T+02:42: Second stage engine ignition (SES 1) T+03:16: Fairing jettison T+06:17: First stage combustion ignition input (three engines) T+06:37: Cutoff of first stage inlet combustion T+08:09: Landing burn ignition first stage (one engine) T+08:28: Second stage engine cut-out (SECO 1) T+08:31: First stage landing T+47:16: Second engine ignition stage (SES 2) T+47:20: Second stage engine cut-out (SECO 2) T+49:51: BlueWalker 3 separation T+1:07:36: Second engine ignition stage (SES 3) T+1:07:38: Second stage engine cut-out (SECO 3) T+1:53:56: Second engine ignition stage (SES 4) T+1:54:05: Second stage engine cut-out (SECO 4) T+2:03:49: Separation of Starlink satellites

SHIPPING STATISTICS:

175th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010 183rd launch of the Falcon missile family since 2006 14th release of Falcon 9 booster B1058 150th Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast SpaceX’s 54th launch from pad 39A 148th overall launch from pad 39A 117th flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster 60th Falcon 9 launch dedicated primarily to the Starlink network 41st Falcon 9 launch of 2022 41st launch from SpaceX in 2022 39th orbital launch attempt based at Cape Canaveral in 2022

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