SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - SAOCOM 1B + GNOMES-1 + Tyvak 0172 - Launched August 30, 2020
Screenshot from SpaceX Webcast of the launch of SAOCOM 1B
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 B5 - SAOCOM 1B
Written: Juli 29, 2021
Going way down south in stile
SpaceX has conducted the first polar launch from Florida since 1969. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 - SLC-40 occurred at 19:18 EDT - 23:18 UTC on Sunday.
SpaceX launched the SAOCOM-1B and the GNOMES-1 Earth observation satellites, along with the Tyvak 0172 6U CubeSat, atop its rocket, the Falcon 9. SAOCOM-1B lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 - SLC-40 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This launch will mark the first polar launch since 1969, when a Delta E1 rocket launched the ESSA-9 meteorology satellite.
B1059 first flew the CRS-19 mission, which launched on December 5, 2019. SAOCOM-1B will be the booster’s fourth flight; its designation will change to B1059-4.
Booster B1059 wasn’t static fired. There is no evidence of it happening. It’s a first.
The recovery fleet have split their resources between SAOCOM 1B and Starlink L10
About 210 seconds after launch the second stage will jettison its fairings. The fairings are expected to be recovered using SpaceX’s two recovery vessels: Go Ms. Tree and Go Ms. Chief. Only the latter was sendt. The fairings were recovered from the sea.
After being jettisoned, the two fairing halves will then use cold gas thrusters to orientate themselves as they descend through the atmosphere. Once at a lower altitude, they will deploy parafoils to help them glide down to a soft landing either in the nets or in the ocean.
SpaceX is the first company to recover and reuse payload fairings. These are new Type 2.1 lifeboat sized fairings - 34 x 17 feet with 8 vents ports, a heat resistant thermal steel tip and no acoustic tiles inside the fairings.
Following stage separation booster B1059-4 conducted three burns. These three burns brought the Falcon 9 to a soft landing at LZ-1, at the CCAFS.
Ground track completely hugs the coastline of Florida. Altitude height exaggerated
This launch is especially interesting as it is a polar launch (meaning it is heading South) from the East coast. This is something that has not been done in over 50 years; it last happened when NASA Launched ESSA-9 on a Delta rocket on February 26th, 1969.
After this, this launch corridor was shut down due to being too much of a risk to the populated areas in it. However, this changed in 2018 when the 45th space wing announced that if rockets had an automatic flight termination system (AFTS) they would be able to launch in this corridor.
As of now, this means that only the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are able to launch into polar orbits from the East coast, but that is going to change in the coming years. SpaceX’s Starship, Blue Orgin’s New Glenn, and ULA’s Vulcan are all going to have automatic flight termination systems, meaning they will be able to take advantage of this opening.
The Payload
SAOCOM-1B, and its sister satellite SAOCOM-1A, each weigh 1,600 kg and were built by INVAP, in Argentina. SAOCOM-1A was launched on B1048 on October 8th, 2018. Both satellites are Earth observation satellites containing L-band microwave radars and infrared cameras which gives the ability to see through clouds and at night.
SAOCOM-1B is operated by CONAE, Argentina’s government space agency. The pair of SAOCOM-1 satellites carry L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instruments to measure soil moisture and other parameters in support of emergency response and disaster relief.
Due to this functionality, SAOCOM-1A/B constellation will be used to monitor for disasters, joining a joint Italo-Argentine (Sistema Italo Argentino de Satélites para la Gestión de Emergencias) SIASGE constellation consisting of four COSMO-SkyMed satellites.
Enclosed in the fairing there are 1 smallsat and 1 CubeSat: GNOMES-1 and Tyvak 0172.
GNSS Navigation and Occultation Measurement Satellites (GNOMES-1) satellite, a 30-kilogram microsatellite built by Blue Canyon Technologies for American Earth science company EarthIQ. GNOMES-1 receives signals from four Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS): the American GPS constellation, Russian GLONASS, European Galileo, and Chinese BeiDou satellites. By measuring these signals as they pass through Earth’s atmosphere, PlanetIQ aims to improve weather forecasting models. The GNOMES-1 satellite is the first of 20 satellites to be launched for this constellation.
Another source states that the second rideshare payload on board was Tyvak-0172, a CubeSat from Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems. It’s a ‘shoebox’ sized 6U CubeSat 11 kg.
No comments:
Post a Comment