Live coverage: Falcon 9 launch and landing on tap overnight

Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket will launch a commercial lunar lander for the Japanese company ispace. Follow us on Twitter.

A week-and-a-half after grounding the mission to resolve an unspecified problem with the Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX is setting up for another launch early Sunday from Cape Canaveral with a commercial moon lander for the Japanese company ispace, along with a NASA hitchhiker micro-payload called Lunar Flashlight.

Launch time Thursday is set for 2:38 a.m. EST (0837 GMT). A 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket will fire off pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station powered by nine Merlin 1D engines, heading on a course east over the Atlantic Ocean. Forty-seven minutes later, the rocket’s upper stage will deploy ispace’s Hakuto-R lunar lander, then release NASA’s Lunar Flashlight microsatellite just before T+plus 53 minutes.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket stands vertical on pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ahead of launch with ispace’s Hakuto-R Mission 1 lunar lander. Credit: SpaceX

The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will target a landing back at Cape Canaveral about eight minutes after liftoff, returning to Landing Zone 2 about 6 miles (9 kilometers) south of the launching pad. The booster on Sunday’s mission, tail number B1073, is making its fifth flight to space.

The first stage will burn its nine engines for 2 minutes and 13 seconds, generating 1.7 million pounds of thrust to send the Hakuto-R moon lander into the upper atmosphere. The booster will shut down and separate from the Falcon 9’s upper stage, then reverse course to descend back to Cape Canaveral. The rocket will relight a subset of its engines to steer itself back to the Florida coast, culminating in a final braking burn with its center engine and the extension of its landing legs before settling onto the circular concrete pad at Landing Zone 2.

Landing Zone 2 is one of two onshore SpaceX landing pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. A Falcon 9 booster landed at nearby Landing Zone 1 after a launch Thursday evening with 40 OneWeb internet satellites.

The Falcon 9’s upper stage will fire its single engine five-and-a-half minutes to reach a low-altitude parking orbit, then the rocket will coast until T+plus 40 minutes and 2 seconds before reigniting for a minute-long burn to send the Hakuto-R lander on a speedy trajectory carrying it far away from Earth.

Separation of ispace’s Hakuto-R lander from the Falcon 9 upper stage is scheduled 47 minutes into the mission. That will be followed by activation of the spacecraft’s systems and extension of its landing gear, setting up for a series of thruster firings to fine-tune its long-duration but fuel-efficient course toward the moon.

The privately-funded lander will target a landing on the nearside of the moon at the end of April, aiming to become the first fully commercial mission to achieve a soft touchdown on the lunar surface. The Hakuto-R lander will deliver to the moon a small rover named Rashid for the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai, a miniature mobile rocket for Japan’s space agency, and a suite of cameras from Canada.

A 31-pound (14-kilogram) hitchhiker payload for NASA, called Lunar Flashlight, will deploy from the Falcon 9 about 53 minutes after launch. The Lunar Flashlight is led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and will fly itself to a looping halo orbit around the moon. Its mission will test a laser system to shine into eternally dark craters near the lunar poles. The spacecraft will measure the light reflected off the lunar surface, revealing the composition and quantity of water ice and other molecules hidden on dark crater floors.

Read more details in our mission preview story.

ROCKET: Falcon 9 (B1073.5)

PAYLOAD: ispace’s Hakuto-R Mission 1

LAUNCH SITE: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida

LAUNCH DATE: Dec. 11, 2022

LAUNCH TIME: 2:38 a.m. EST (0738 GMT)

WEATHER FORECAST: TBD

BOOSTER RECOVERY: Landing Zone 1, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida

LAUNCH AZIMUTH: East

TARGET ORBIT: Low-energy lunar transfer orbit

LAUNCH TIMELINE:

T+00:00: Liftoff T+01:12: Maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q) T+02:13: First stage main engine cutoff (MECO) T+02:17: Stage separation T+02:24: Second stage engine ignition T+02:29: First stage boost back burn ignition (three engines) T+03:06: Payload fairing jettison T+03:26: First stage boost back burn cutoff T+06:33: First stage entry burn ignition (three engines) T+06:53: First stage entry burn cutoff T+07:44: First stage landing burn ignition (one engine) T+07:52: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 1) T+08:16: First stage landing T+40:02: Second stage engine restart T+40:58: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 2) T+46:59: Hakuto-R spacecraft separation T+53:09: Lunar Flashlight spacecraft separation

MISSION STATS:

189th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010 198th launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006 5th launch of Falcon 9 booster B1073 162nd Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast 105th Falcon 9 launch from pad 40 160th launch overall from pad 40 129th flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster 1st SpaceX launch for ispace 3rd SpaceX launch of a moon mission 55th Falcon 9 launch of 2022 56th launch by SpaceX in 2022 54th orbital launch attempt based out of Cape Canaveral in 2022

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.