SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket carrying satellite

[Buster's Uncle]

SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket carrying satellite
Los Angeles Times
By Chad Garland  August 5, 2014, 8:37 AM



A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket arcs across the sky after launching from Cape Canaveral. (Malcolm Denemark / Associated Press)



A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off early Tuesday from Cape Canaveral after its initial launch attempt was scrubbed with less than a minute on the countdown clock..

It was the fourth orbital launch for the Hawthorne-based rocket company so far this year and the 11th Falcon 9 flight. The commercial space firm said the 2.5-hour delay was related to an issue with the rocket’s first stage.

SpaceX had planned for liftoff at 10:25 p.m. Pacific time Monday, but the computer aborted the countdown with 12 seconds on the clock. Takeoff was at 1 a.m., 11 minutes before the launch window closed.

The launch was streamed online, with Falcon 9 product director John Insprucker giving updates from Hawthorne.

The nine-engine rocket lifted off with more than 1 million pounds of thrust, reaching supersonic speeds in under two minutes and burning a white-hot arc across the sky. It jettisoned its first stage after about three minutes and delivered its payload into orbit about 28 minutes after liftoff.

The Falcon 9 was carrying a commercial broadcast television satellite to space for Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Ltd., or AsiaSat. The satellite was manufactured by Palo Alto’s Space Systems/Loral.

Due to the fuel expenditure required to deliver the satellite to a high orbit, the launch did not include a rocket reusability test. Three previous Falcon 9 flights to low Earth orbit involved attempts to bring the rocket's first stage engine gently back to Earth for re-use -- part of the rocket-maker's efforts to drive down the cost of commercial space flight.

Tuesday's launch comes a day after Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced a $15.3 million incentive package to pay for infrastructure development at a site at the southern tip of Texas, where SpaceX plans to build the world’s first commercial spaceport for orbital missions.

The company has said it plans to launch 12 rockets a year from the site east of Brownsville, on Boca Chica Beach near the Gulf of Mexico.


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-falcon-9-launch-20140805-story.html

[Buster's Uncle]

SpaceX Rocket Launches Commercial Telecom Satellite Into Orbit
SPACE.com
by Mike Wall, Senior Writer  10 hours ago



SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Aug. 5, 2014, carrying the AsiaSat 8 commercial telecom satellite.



A high-powered commercial telecommunications satellite blasted into space atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket early Tuesday morning (Aug. 5).

The Falcon 9 rocket, which was carrying the AsiaSat 8 spacecraft, lifted off from SpaceX's launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 4:00 a.m. EDT (0800 GMT) Tuesday, tracing an arc of orange flame across the dark southeastern skies on the fourth Falcon 9 flight of 2014. The launch was originally scheduled for 1:25 a.m. EDT Tuesday, but an issue with the rocket's first stage caused a 2.5-hour delay.

The launch plan calls for the rocket to deliver AsiaSat 8 to a highly elliptical "transfer orbit," but the satellite will eventually make its way to geosynchronous orbit about 22,300 miles (35,900 kilometers) above the planet. From there, AsiaSat 8 will look down on much of Asia, providing a variety of telecom services to customers in the region over the next 15 years.

"AsiaSat 8 will provide exceptional power and additional Ku beam coverage with inter-beam switching capability for services including DTH [direct-to-home] television, private networks and broadband services," representatives for the Hong Kong-based firm AsiaSat (short for Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Ltd.) wrote in an online description of the satellite, which was built by Space Systems/Loral.

The craft "will be the most powerful member of AsiaSat's fleet, with a payload power of about 8,500 watts," the description said.

In a departure from several recent SpaceX launches, Tuesday morning's liftoff did not include a rocket-reusability test as a secondary objective.

Three times in the past year, SpaceX has tried to bring the Falcon 9's first stage back to Earth for a soft ocean splashdown. The first attempt, in September 2013, met with partial success; engineers re-lit the rocket stage's engine twice, but it spun out of control and hit the water hard.

SpaceX put landing legs on the Falcon 9 before an April 2014 liftoff to address the spin problem, and the fix seemed to be effective. Data from the rocket showed that the stage made a soft landing in the ocean, though rough seas broke the stage apart before a recovery crew could retrieve it.

The most recent reusability test, which occurred last month during a launch for commercial-satellite firm Orbcomm, was also a success, SpaceX representatives said. Indeed, SpaceX released a video captured by a camera on the Falcon 9 first stage that shows its measured descent and controlled entry into the Atlantic Ocean.

These tests are part of SpaceX's efforts to develop a fully and rapidly reusable rocket, which the company's billionaire CEO and founder Elon Musk has said could slash spaceflight costs by a factor of 100. The next reusability trial should come on Sept. 12, during the launch of SpaceX's unmanned Dragon capsule on its fourth contracted cargo run to the International Space Station for NASA, company representatives have said.


http://news.yahoo.com/spacex-rocket-launches-commercial-telecom-satellite-orbit-081553501.html

[Buster's Uncle]

SpaceX launches Falcon rocket with commercial satellite after hitch
Reuters
By Irene Chiappisi  8 hours ago



CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) - A Space Exploration Technologies Falcon 9 rocket thundered off its coastal launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Tuesday to put a commercial communications satellite into orbit.

On its second launch attempt of the day, the 224-foot (68-meter) rocket lifted off at 4 a.m. EDT/0800 GMT, blazing through partly cloudy, pre-dawn skies as it headed into space.

The first try, 2-1/2 hours earlier, ended less than a minute before liftoff when a computer found a potential problem with the rocket’s first-stage engine, SpaceX officials said in a live webcast. The issue was resolved, clearing the rocket for flight.

Perched on top of the Falcon 9 was a communications satellite owned by Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings Ltd, or AsiaSat.

The spacecraft, known as AsiaSat 8 and built by Space Systems/Loral, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based subsidiary of Canada’s MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd, will become the fifth member of an orbital network that provides telecommunication services to the Asia-Pacific region.

AsiaSat hired privately owned SpaceX for two satellite launches, the second of which is due to launch later this month.

Previously, AsiaSat bought rides on Russian Proton rockets but decided to hire SpaceX after the California-based start-up won a NASA contract to fly cargo to the International Space Station, AsiaSat chief executive William Wade said in a pre-launch interview.

“We gained confidence in seeing how they were developing technically,” Wade said.

AsiaSat had not used a U.S. launcher since 2003.SpaceX’s cut-rate launch price – rides on Falcon 9 were selling for about $54 million at the time – also was a factor, he said.

SpaceX’s website shows the price of a Falcon 9 is now $61.2 million. The company, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, has a backlog of nearly 40 missions.

Tuesday’s launch was the SpaceX’s second in three weeks. The company’s last launch was delayed by a series of technical issues, which then bumped AsiaSat’s launch.

“We’re a few months later than we would liked to have been launched. That’s not totally unexpected with a new launch provider. There are some growing pains and some teething that goes on with a new supplier," Wade said.

Once in orbit about 22,300 miles (35,888 km) over Asia, the new satellite, which is equipped with 24 Ku-band transponders and a Ka-band beam, will relay digital television, broadband and other telecommunications services for customers in India, China, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Including satellite construction, launch and insurance, the mission is costing AsiaSat between $180 million and $200 million, Wade said.

The satellite is designed to last for 15 years.


(Editing by Louise Ireland)


http://news.yahoo.com/spacex-launches-falcon-rocket-commercial-111237539.html