Update February 21st, 9:30PM ET: SpaceX successfully launched all three spacecraft into their intended orbits. The Falcon 9 used for the mission also landed on SpaceX’s drone ship, despite traveling through rough weather conditions. The landing marks the third successful touchdown of this particular rocket, and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk noted that it would fly again in April, performing a key test flight of the company’s new Crew Dragon capsule. If that happens, this Falcon 9 booster will be the first one to go to space and back four times.

Original story: Tonight, SpaceX is set to launch its second Falcon 9 rocket of the year. This one will carry an eclectic trio of spacecraft into a high orbit above Earth. The payloads include an Indonesian communications satellite, a small experimental satellite for the Air Force, and an Israeli lander that will spend the next two months traveling to the Moon.

The rocket ride-share was partially coordinated by Spaceflight Industries, a company that serves as a broker for satellite operators that need to get into space. To do this, Spaceflight finds extra room on rockets already launching larger spacecraft and provides hardware to help deploy vehicles into orbit. In this case, SpaceX was set to launch the Indonesian satellite, named Nusantara Satu, and Spaceflight Industries arranged for the two other spacecraft to join the mission.

Nusantara Satu, operated by Indonesian satellite company Pasifik Satelit Nusantara, will provide internet connectivity for Indonesia as the country’s first “high-throughput satellite,” according to SpaceX. The Air Force’s payload, called S5, is meant to test whether small, low-cost satellites could be feasible for Department of Defense missions. S5 will ride into space attached to the Nusantara Satu satellite and then deploy when they’re both in orbit.

The final rider is the Beresheet lander, a spacecraft developed by Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 will drop this lander off about 60,000 kilometers up, putting the spacecraft into an elongated orbit around Earth. From there, Beresheet will spend the next two months stretching its orbit farther to make it all the way out to the Moon and reach lunar orbit. If that’s a success, the lander will then perform an autonomous landing, marking the first Moon mission for Israel and the first private spacecraft to reach the surface of another planetary body.

SpaceIL’s Beresheet lander mounted on the device that will deploy it into orbit.
Photo: Spaceflight Industries

The mission holds a number of firsts for both SpaceX and Spaceflight Industries. SpaceX has never launched a vehicle bound for the Moon before. Meanwhile, this is the first flight Spaceflight Industries has coordinated that will send spacecraft to a high orbit known as a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Before this, Spaceflight had only arranged missions that went to low Earth orbit, but tonight’s flight will go higher than the company has ever gone before. “The mission is really complex, there are a lot of design constraints and mission constraints that are very specific to this type of mission,” Ryan Olcott, the mission director for this flight at Spaceflight, tells The Verge.

SpaceX is employing one of its used Falcon 9s for the launch — a vehicle that has already flown twice before. The rocket previously launched a batch of satellites for Iridium in July 2018, and then it flew again in October, putting up an Argentinian satellite called SAOCOM 1A. It landed successfully back on Earth after each trip, and now, it will try for a third successful launch and landing. After takeoff, the rocket will attempt to land on one of SpaceX’s autonomous drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean.

Today’s mission is scheduled for liftoff at 8:45PM ET out of SpaceX’s launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force station in Florida. The company has a 32-minute launch window, so it can conceivably take off up until 9:17PM ET. So far, there’s an 80 percent chance that the weather will cooperate for the flight, according to the 45th Space Wing, which oversees launches out of the Cape. If SpaceX can’t launch tonight, it can try again on Friday.

SpaceX’s coverage of the mission is set to begin 15 minutes before liftoff. Check back then to watch a trio of satellites launch live.

This article is from The Verge

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