SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - SES-22 - Launched June 29, 2022
Screenshot from SpaceX Webcast of the launch of SES-22
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 - SES-22
Written: August 10, 2022
Old client. New satellite. Same old journey
Wednesday, June 29 at 17:04 EDT, Falcon 9 launched SES-22 to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
Falcon 9's booster 1073, launched on an eastbound trajectory in the usual flight path for satellites launching to a geostationary transfer orbit from Florida. The first stage landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic, while the fairing halves were to be retrieved by the support ship Doug.
This was booster 1073’s second flight. Its first was on May 14, also from Launch Complex 40. Booster 1073 flew the Starlink Group 4-15 mission, launching 53 satellites. This same booster also landed on the drone ship Just Read The Instructions.
The second stage injected the SES-22 satellite into its needed geostationary transfer orbit and released the spacecraft, which will coast to its apogee and then fire its own engines to circularize the orbit. The spacecraft will end up over the equator in a slot at the 135 degrees West location and will support direct-to-home C-band telecommunications services for the United States.
After boosting the second stage along with its payload towards orbit, the first stage will perform a 20 second re-entry burn to slow the vehicle down in preparation for atmospheric reentry. The booster will then perform a 20-25 second landing burn aboard SpaceX’s autonomous spaceport drone ship.
SpaceX will also recover both fairing halves in the Atlantic Ocean with recovery vessel Doug, named after Demo-2 Astronaut Doug Hurley.
B1073-2 will have made its second flight after launching the following mission:
B1073-2 did not perform a static fire test after refurbishment and waiting for an east coast launch out of the Cape. SpaceX has since Starlink V1.0 L08 omitted this safety precaution many times so far. It is not required to perform a static fire test inhouse missions like Starlink, that was to save 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.
Falcon fairings half’s have been recovered and reused since 2019. Improved design changes and overall refurbishment procedures have decreased the effects of water landings and led to an increased recovery rate of fairings.
The fairings are a used pair from one previous mission. Both fairings survived the landing. Active fairings are equipped with four pushrods to separate the two fairings half’s.
Fairings had 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 commercial Payload
The 3.5-ton SES-22 satellite was originally built as a ground spare as part of a two-satellite contract with Thales Alenia Space. The SES-22 and SES-23 satellites under this contract are based on the Spacebus 4000 B2 bus, which is a proven platform used by satellites like Bangabandhu-1, Nilesat 301, Telkom 3S, and others.
SES-22’s status as a now-launching spare stems from a Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) requirement years ago that satellite operators clear the 280 MHz range of C-band spectrum, plus a 20 MHz guard band, for 5G mobile services in the contiguous United States. A portion of the C-band spectrum was to be made available to mobile operators as early as last December while the agency’s full (Phase II) accelerated relocation deadline for satellite operators is December 5, 2023.
To meet this FCC deadline for satellite operators, Luxembourg-based SES purchased four communications satellites in June 2020 from two US companies. Northrop Grumman was contracted to build the SES-18 and SES-19 satellites based on the Geostar-3 platform, while Boeing was tapped to build the SES-20 and SES-21 satellites based on their 702SP all-electric satellites.
Two months later, SES ordered the SES-22 and SES-23 platforms from Thales Alenia Space as backup “spare” satellites to help the company meet the FCC’s C-band spectrum clearance deadline if the other satellites suffered a launch failure or other issues.
Northrop Grumman encountered construction delays with the SES-18 and SES-19 satellites due to COVID-19 pandemic related supply chain constraints and component reliability issues, so SES-22 was scheduled for launch as it had been completed.
SES-22 is the first of several to help SES transition its services to a different portion of the C-band.
After SES-22, the Boeing-built SES-20 satellite is slated to be launched along with its sister spacecraft, SES-21, no earlier than this coming August on an Atlas V. The Northrop Grumman satellites (SES-18 and 19) are currently scheduled to fly no earlier than this October, though a quarterly report filed by SES with the FCC states “there is a significant risk the satellites will not be commercially available by the end of 2022.”
SES and Thales Alenia Space have had to work around pandemic and Ukraine war-related difficulties to get the SES-22 satellite built and shipped to the launch site. Since no Antonov An-124 heavy lift cargo planes were available, SES-22 and Nilesat 301 were shipped to Port Canaveral aboard the Dutch cargo ship Celtic.
The SES-22 spacecraft will take approximately 10 days to complete its launch and early orbit phase (LEOP) and is scheduled to begin operations sometime in August. Starting with this satellite, SES will be able to meet the FCC’s requirement to clear the lower 300 MHz of the C-band. SES-22 and its sister satellites will move the company’s services to the upper 200 MHz of the C-band.
SES-22 is the 11th Spacebus 4000 B2 satellite to be built, while SES-23 is the 12th. It is not currently known what the disposition of the SES-23 sister satellite will be, though it is also a spare satellite to cover for contingencies that would otherwise cause SES to risk missing the December 2023 C-band clearance deadline.
The geostationary satellite launch market had been in a slump in the latter part of the last decade, but there was an uptick in orders for new spacecraft in 2019 and 2020.
The six SES satellites from three space companies were part of this wave of orders, as they and Intelsat need new spacecraft to transition their services from the lower portion of the C-band for use by 5G mobile networks.
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