SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - Türksat 5B - Launching December 18/19, 2021
Screenshot from SpaceX Webcast of the launch of Türksat 5B
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 B5 - Türksat 5B
Written: August 5, 2022
End of year rush to make a triple launch
SpaceX successfully launched the Türksat 5B into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) atop a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket. Türksat 5B lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This mission is a follow up to the Türksat 5A mission, which launched in 2021.
On Saturday, December 18 at 10:58 p.m. EST, Falcon 9 launched the Turksat 5B mission to geostationary transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the third launch and landing of booster B1067-3, which previously supported launch of CRS-22 and Crew-3.
B1067-3 did not perform a static fire test after refurbishment and waiting for an east coast launch out of the Cape. SpaceX has omitted this safety precaution several times so far. It is not required to perform a static fire test on ‘inhouse’ missions like Starlink, which saves money and time before the launch.
SpaceX is the first entity ever that recovers and reflies its fairings. After being jettisoned, the two fairing halves will use cold gas thrusters to orientate themselves as they descend through the atmosphere. Once at a lower altitude, they will deploy drogue chutes and parafoils to help them glide down to a soft landing for recovery.
The fairings are a pair of used fairings type 3.2, which both flew on the GPS III SV05 mission. Both fairings were salvaged after the landing. Active fairings are equipped with four pushrods to separate the two fairings.
Fairings have evenly spaced venting ports that have been redesigned a number of times by having first ten, then eight and now having their venting ports built as close pairs along the fairing edge. This prevents saltwater from the ocean from flooding and sinking the fairing, and makes refurbishment toward the next flight easier.
The fairings are equipped with acoustic flamenco tiles that dampen the shock waves from the sound of the launch. Starlink Satellites are launched without acoustic tiles in Type 3.1.
After liftoff, Falcon 9’s first stage will propel the astronauts for 2 minutes and 30 seconds to an altitude of around 75 km (~47 miles). After stage separation, Falcon 9’s second stage takes over for the second part of the flight.
Following the stage separation from 2nd stage, the booster B1067-3 will conduct an atmosphere reentry burn and a landing burn and will softly touch down on “A Shortfall Of Gravitas'' positioned 620 km downrange on the Atlantic Ocean.
Approximately 6 minutes and 7 seconds after second stage engine ignition the second stage engine will shut down (SECO-1) and Türksat 5B will be in Low Earth Orbit until it reaches the Equator at T+00:26:49 where SES-2 begins to burn for a minute.
The 2nd stage will push itself and Türksat 5B into a supersynchronous geostationary orbit of 198 km x 68 931 km x 27,12° and after 7 minutes deploying Türksat 5B leaving itself as derelict space debris until its reentry in Earth's atmosphere. That reentry of the Türksat 5B missions 2nd stage happened over south Brazil at 8:00 UTC on March 8, 2022 some 79 days after launch at 03:58:39 UTC on December 19, 2021.
That’s faster than you would think. It’s a drag-race in Space.
The Commercial Payload
Türksat 5B is a Turkish geostationary communication satellite built by Airbus Defense and Space. The satellite, which is operated by Türksat, will provide direct TV broadcasting services and general telecommunication services to Turkey, Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia and Africa.
Türksat 5B will operate in Geostationary Orbit (GEO) at 42° East inclination. It is the second of three Turksat spacecraft to launch on Falcon 9, following the launch of Turksat-5A in January 2021 and preceding the Turksat-6A satellite launching no earlier than 2022.
Like Türksat-5A, Türksat-5B was built by Airbus Defence and Space and is based on the Eurostar-3000EOR spacecraft bus. The spacecraft is powered by a pair of deployable solar arrays which in combination with batteries provide the satellite with over 15 kW of power and has a launch mass of approximately 4,500 kilograms.
This will make Türksat 5B the most powerful satellite in Türksat’s fleet. In fact, due to this large amount of power the satellite is fully electric and uses ion propulsion.
The satellite hosts 42 Ku-band, Ka-band, and X-band payloads for a combination of civilian and military communications capabilities. Türksat-5B is designed to conduct a 15-year-long mission, stationed at the 42 degrees East position in geostationary orbit.
That is, the Türksat-5B will orbit at geostationary altitude (35,785 kilometers) and zero degrees inclination, always hang over the equator at 42 degrees East longitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment