Screenshot from SpaceX Webcast of the Hotbird 13G launch. I can’t do this with you watching
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 B5 - Hotbird 13G
Written: November 3, 2022
Dancing through the Night
SpaceX will be launching the Hotbird 13G satellite on their 51st mission of the year. The 4,500 kg (99,000 lb) satellite will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA.
Hotbird 13G was built by Airbus Defense and Space for joint operation by the European Space Agency and Eutelsat.
Hotbird 13G will launch on Thursday, November 3, 2022 at 01:22:00 EDT, from SLC-40. Hotbird 13G first stage booster B1067-7 will land on ‘JRTI’ - Just Read The Instructions almost nine minutes after liftoff.
After boosting the second stage along with its payload towards orbit, the first stage will freefall in a parabolic curve before it performs a 30 second re-entry burn meant to slow the vehicle down before the atmospheric reentry. The booster will then perform a 27 second landing burn and softly land aboard SpaceX’s autonomous spaceport drone ship.
SpaceX will also recover both fairing halves in the Atlantic Ocean with the recovery vessel Bob, named after Demo-2 Astronaut Bob Behnken.
B1067-7 will have made its seventh flight after launching the following mission:
B1067-7 didn’t perform a static fire test after refurbishment while waiting for a west coast launch out of Vandenberg. SpaceX has since Starlink L08 omitted this safety precaution many times so far. It isn’t required to perform a static fire test on inhouse missions like Starlink as to save time.
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 later a parafoil to help them glide down to a soft landing for recovery.
Falcon fairings halfs 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 an old pair flying on their fourth and sixth mission with no known joint mission. Both fairings are expected to survive the landing. Active fairings are equipped with four pushrods to separate the two fairing halfs.
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 Payload
Eutelsat Hotbird 13G is number two of a pair developed by satellite manufacturer Airbus for satellite operator Eutelsat in an ESA Partnership Project designed to foster innovation and competitiveness in the European space industry. Eutelsat Hotbird 13G is the second Eutelsat satellite to be launched by SpaceX this year.
Once launched into geostationary orbit some 36 000 km above Earth, the twin satellites will reinforce and enhance the broadcast of more than a thousand television channels into homes across Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East, replacing three older satellites.
Eutelsat Hotbird 13G is equipped with two solar panels generating 22 kW of power to enable efficient use of 80 Ku band transponders. That totals 160 Ku band transponders between both satellites in the same position.
The satellite has an estimated lifetime of 15 years and will be replacing the Hotbird 8, 9, 10 satellites (later renamed to Hotbird 13 B, C, and D respectively) which have been in service for about 14 years.
The increased Ku band capacity on the newly updated Hotbird 13F and 13G satellites will only require two satellites to be at Eutelsat’s East position in Geostationary orbit instead of the prior three, who will be deferred to a graveyard orbit further out.
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