Live coverage: SpaceX counting down to first launch of 2023

SpaceX’s first launch of the year will haul 114 small satellites into polar orbit for operators in 23 countries. Liftoff is set for 9:56 a.m. EST (1456 GMT) Tuesday. The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket will return to Cape Canaveral for landing about eight-and-a-half minutes later.

Forecasters from the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predict a 90% chance of acceptable conditions for liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket to begin SpaceX’s Transporter 6 small satellite rideshare mission.

After launch, the Falcon 9 will head southeast from Cape Canaveral, then veer south along Florida’s east coast to place the mission’s 114 payloads into polar orbit. The first stage will fire its nine Merlin engines for 2 minutes and 17 seconds, then separate from the Falcon upper stage to begin its return to Florida.

The first stage will pulse cold gas nitrogen thrusters to flip around and fly tail-first, then ignite three of the Merlin engines for a boost-back burn at the edge of space to reverse course and head back to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The booster will  extend titanium grid fins to help steer the rocket back through the atmosphere, then fire three of its engines again for a re-entry burn. After slowing to a velocity less than the speed of sound, the rocket will fire its center engine for a final braking maneuver just before a vertical touchdown on four legs at Landing Zone 1, less than 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the launch pad.

The reusable first stage on Tuesday’s mission — tail number B1060 — is going for its 15th launch and landing, tying a record for the most-flown booster in SpaceX’s inventory. It debuted in June 2020 on a mission carrying a GPS navigation satellite into space, and most recently flew Oct. 8 on a mission with two Intelsat TV broadcasting satellites.

While the booster returns to Cape Canaveral after Tuesday’s liftoff, the Falcon 9’s second stage engine will burn about six minutes to reach a preliminary parking orbit. After coasting over Central America, the Pacific Ocean, and Antarctica, the upper stage will briefly restart its engines for two seconds around 55 minutes into the mission to place the satellite payloads into a near-circular orbit at an altitude of about 326 miles (525 kilometers), and an inclination of 97.5 degrees to the equator.

File photo of a Falcon 9 rocket on pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Credit: Spaceflight Now

Then the Falcon 9 will begin releasing its passengers.

The payloads include 36 small SuperDove CubeSats for Planet’s commercial Earth-imaging constellation, which currently consists of approximately 200 spacecraft. The satellites will collect optical imagery for use by Planet’s customers, including commercial clients and government users, such as U.S. intelligence agencies.

The Transporter 6 mission will also deploy a roughly 400-pound (178-kilogram) satellite for EOS Data Analytics, a Silicon Valley startup founded by Max Polyakov, a Ukrainian  entrepreneur and investor. The EOS SAT 1 spacecraft is designed to capture medium to high resolution images of Earth’s surface, with an emphasis on agricultural monitoring. It is one of the largest satellites on the Transporter 6 launch, and was built by Dragonfly Aerospace in South Africa.

There are six commercial space tugs and orbital transfer vehicles on the Transporter 6 mission, each capable of carrying multiple smaller satellites into different orbits for “last-mile” delivery in low Earth orbit.

The space tugs can change their altitude, inclination, or other orbital parameters, hauling small payloads to different locations in space than the drop-off orbit of the main rocket. The transfer vehicles can reposition small satellites into orbits more favorable for their missions.

Two of the transfer vehicles on the Transporter 6 mission come from the Italian company D-Orbit, which will deploy several nanosatellites into orbit in the weeks after launch. D-Orbit’s two ION satellite carriers will release four small satellites for a data relay and asset tracking constellation owned by the Swiss company Astrocast. One of the ION tugs will also deploy Kelpie, a 9-pound (4-kilogram) CubeSat to provide maritime tracking services for Orbcomm.

Another orbital transfer vehicle developed by a startup named Launcher is also mounted on the Transporter 6 payload stack. Launcher’s Orbiter SN1 space tug is fitted with a ethane/nitrous oxide propulsion system to change its orbital altitude and inclination, and the company says the vehicle is capable of accommodating up to 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of payload mass.

The Orbiter SN1 mission carries deployable satellites for U.S.-based Skyline Celestial, Innova Space of Argentina, Italy’s NPC SpaceMind, Cal Poly Pomona, Stanford University, and an undisclosed customer. The spacecraft also hosts a payload containing cremated human remains for Beyond Burials, and a phased array antenna from CesiumAstro to demonstrate a high-data rate Ka-band communications system that could be used on future small satellites in Earth orbit and at the moon.

An Australian company named Skykraft is also launching a 660-pound (300-kilogram) payload on the Transporter 6 mission. The Skykraft package includes the company’s own orbital transfer vehicle, which will separate from the Falcon 9 rocket and then later deploy four of its own satellites for Skykraft’s planned constellation of 210 spacecraft providing air traffic management services. Skykraft says its satellites will relay real-time communications between air traffic control and pilots flying over remote parts of the ocean.

San Francisco-based Epic Aerospace will also launch its first orbital transfer vehicle, called Chimera LEO 1, on the Transporter 6 mission. Epic Aerospace has not said if its first transfer vehicle will deploy any customer payloads, or if the mission is purely a technology demonstration.

And Momentus’s second orbital space tug, called the Vigoride 5 Orbital Service Vehicle, is set to ride to space Tuesday on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The Vigoride 5 Orbital Service Vehicle, or OSV, follows Momentus’s first space tug demo mission, which launched on SpaceX’s Transporter 5 rideshare mission in May.

The first Momentus demonstration mission ran into trouble soon after separating from the Falcon 9 rocket. The Vigoride 3 transfer vehicle encountered communications issues and failed to open its solar arrays, putting the spacecraft in a power crunch that prevented it from completing all mission objectives. Momentus said the Vigoride 3 space tug eventually released seven of its nine customer satellite payloads.

Momentus hopes to test the Vigoride transfer vehicle’s water-based microwave electrothermal thruster system, a type of propulsion system that provides higher efficiency than conventional rocket fuels, and higher thrust than ion engines.

The Vigoride 5 space tug will deploy a small CubeSat into orbit for Qosmosys, a Singapore-based space venture.

The other payload on the Vigoride 5 space tug comes from Caltech, which is flying hardware that could be used in the future to generate electricity in space and beam the energy back to Earth for use on the ground.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is also loaded with three radar remote sensing microsatellites for the Finnish company ICEYE, and two similar radar imaging satellites for Umbra, a startup based in Santa Barbara, California.

There are four optical Earth observation microsatellites on-board for Satellogic, a remote sensing company headquartered in Uruguay. Two of them will be primarily used to survey Albanian territory through an agreement between Satellogic and the Albanian government.

The Transporter 6 mission will also deploy two 132-pound (60-kilogram) spacecraft for Lynk Global, a Virginia-based company developing technology to connect consumer-grade mobile phones through satellites. A satellite called YAM 5 — Yet Another Mission 5 — from Loft Orbital is also aboard the Falcon 9 rocket. YAM 5 is a “condosat” hosting several customer tech demo payloads, including a flight computer, an infrared camera, and telecom systems.

A U.S. Space Force weather mission on the Transporter 6 launch will test a prototype cloud imaging instrument called the Rapid Revisit Optical Cloud Imager, or RROCI. The Space Force instrument is hosted on a small satellite developed by Orion Space Solutions.

Two military satellites from Norway and the Netherlands will work in tandem to demonstrate the military use of a microsatellite spectrum monitoring system to detect and geolocate radar emissions.

A satellite named Sternula 1, owned by the Danish company Sternula, will test a VHF communications system for maritime communications. A briefcase-size spacecraft named NSLSat 2 will be the second satellite launched for the Israeli company NSLComm, which is developing a constellation of smallsats for high-throughput communications.

The Transporter 6 mission will launch four new satellites for Kleos Space of Luxembourg, which operates a fleet of spacecraft to detect and geolocate radio frequency transmissions, providing intelligence on maritime activity for governments and commercial customers. Another small satellite called STAR VIBE from Scanway Space, a Polish company, will validate the performance of two optical payloads, one for Earth observation and another for satellite self-inspection.

Other CubeSat payloads on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket include the BRO-8 satellite for the French maritime surveillance company Unseenlabs, the Menut Earth observation spacecraft from the Spanish company Open Cosmos, the Guardian Alpha tech demo satellite for the UK company OrbAstro, and the Connecta T1.2 testbed for the Turkish internet of things company Plan-S.

A satellite named Platform 2 from the Bulgarian firm EnduroSat is also on-board. It is another “condosat” mission to support testing of several customer payloads, including plasma and arc-based thrusters from Magdrive and Hypernova.

A French CubeSat called Gama Alpha will unfurl a 789-square-foot (73.3-square-meter) solar sail in low Earth orbit and attempt to harness light energy from the sun as a means of propulsion. Sony’s Star Sphere CubeSat carries a full-frame camera with a 28-135 mm lens. Sony says selected artists and space enthusiasts will be able to command the camera to take pictures of Earth, sunrises and sunsets, the moon and stars.

There are also six CubeSats on the Transporter 6 mission for Spire Global’s constellation satellites for ship tracking and weather data collection, plus 12 tiny “picosats” for Swarm Technologies, a company owned by SpaceX. Swarm is developing a low-data-rate satellite communications system. Each of the Swarm satellites is about the size of a slice of bread.

The Transporter 6 launch will also place into orbit a small CubeSat from Ukraine to test thermal control technology, Kuwait’s first satellite mission, and an amateur radio CubeSat from the Czech Republic.

ROCKET: Falcon 9 (B1060.15)

MISSION: Transporter 6

PAYLOAD: 114 microsatellites, CubeSats, orbital transfer vehicles, and satellites to be deployed later

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

LAUNCH DATE: Jan. 3, 2023

LAUNCH TIME: 9:56:00 a.m. EST (1456:00 GMT)

LAUNCH WINDOW: One minute

WEATHER FORECAST: 90% probability of acceptable weather

BOOSTER RECOVERY: Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

LAUNCH AZIMUTH: South-southeast, then south

TARGET ORBIT: Approximately 326 miles (525 kilometers), 97.5 degrees inclination

LAUNCH TIMELINE:

T+00:00: Liftoff T+01:12: Maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q) T+02:17: First stage main engine cutoff (MECO) T+02:20: Stage separation T+02:28: Second stage engine ignition T+02:33: First stage boost-back burn ignition (three engines) T+03:20: First stage boost-back burn ends T+03:46: Fairing jettison T+06:44: First stage entry burn ignition (three engines) T+07:07: First stage entry burn ends T+07:58: First stage landing burn ignition (one engine) T+08:23: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 1) T+08:30: First stage landing T+55:20: Second stage engine restart T+55:22: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 2) T+58:24: KuwaitSat 1 separation T+58:34: BDSAT 2 separation T+58:35: SharedSat 2211 separation T+58:44: Spire’s Lemur 2 Emmaculate separation T+58:55: Spire’s Lemur 2 Fuentetaja-01 separation T+59:51: Connecta T1.2 separation T+1:00:00: Gama Alpha separation T+1:00:01: BRO-8 separation T+1:00:12: Menut separation T+1:00:18: MilSpace2 Huygens separation T+1:00:24: Spire’s Lemur 2 Disclaimer separation T+1:00:35: STAR VIBE separation T+1:00:55: Spire’s Lemur 2 Stevealbers separation T+1:01:11: Kleos KSF-3A separation T+1:02:02: MilSpace2 Birkeland separation T+1:02:07: Swarm’s SpaceBEE picosat separation T+1:02:47: Spire’s Lemur 2 Mmolo separation T+1:02:54: Kleos KSF-3B separation T+1:03:25: Kleos KSF-3C separation T+1:04:47: Spire’s Lemur 2 Philari separation T+1:05:02: Kleos KSF-3C separation T+1:05:03: First Planet SuperDove Flock 4Y separation T+1:05:11: EWS RROCI separation T+1:05:12: PolyItan HP-30 separation T+1:05:23: Guardian Alpha separation T+1:05:40: Sony Sphere Eye 1 separation T+1:05:50: NSLSat 2 separation T+1:06:30: Sternula 1 separation T+1:19:42: Last Planet SuperDove Flock 4Y separation T+1:19:46: Lynk Tower 3 separation T+1:20:00: Albania 1 separation T+1:20:02: Lynk Tower 4 separation T+1:20:42: YAM 5 separation T+1:21:48: Satellogic NewSat 34 separation T+1:22:03: Albania 2 separation T+1:22:58: First ICEYE satellite separation T+1:23:04: Second ICEYE satellite separation T+1:23:46: First Umbra satellite separation T+1:23:50: Second Umbra satellite separation T+1:24:47: Satellogic NewSat 35 separation T+1:24:59: D-Orbit’s ION SCV-007 Glorious Gratia separation T+1:26:05: D-Orbit’s ION SCV-008 Fierce Franciscus separation T+1:26:11: Launcher’s Orbiter SN1 separation T+1:27:31: Third ICEYE satellite separation T+1:27:34: Skykraft 1 separation T+1:28:10: Vigoride 5 separation T+1:28:54: Chimera LEO 1 separation T+1:31:10: EOS SAT 1 separation

MISSION STATS:

156th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010 164th launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006 8th launch of Falcon 9 booster B1061 136th Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast 87th Falcon 9 launch from pad 40 142nd launch overall from pad 40 98th flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster 5th Transporter rideshare mission launched by SpaceX 22nd Falcon 9 launch of 2022 22nd launch by SpaceX in 2022 22nd orbital launch based out of Cape Canaveral in 2022

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.