{"id":10723,"date":"2022-01-12T18:07:33","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T10:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-rocket-to-land-back-at-cape-canaveral-thursday\/"},"modified":"2022-01-12T18:07:33","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T10:07:33","slug":"spacex-rocket-to-land-back-at-cape-canaveral-thursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-rocket-to-land-back-at-cape-canaveral-thursday\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX rocket to land back at Cape Canaveral Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A close-up of the top of the Falcon 9 booster stage set for launch with the Transporter 3 rideshare mission. Credit: Michael Cain \/ Spaceflight Now \/ Coldlife Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceX plans to land a Falcon 9 rocket booster back at Cape Canaveral around eight-and-a-half minutes after launch Thursday in the company\u2019s first onshore rocket recovery since last June.<\/p>\n

The launch company warned Central Florida residents they could hear one or more sonic booms as the 15-story-tall booster makes its way back to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral, following a planned launch at 10:25 a.m. EST (1525 GMT) Thursday.<\/p>\n

SpaceX said weather and other conditions could affect what residents experience during the rocket\u2019s return to Earth.<\/p>\n

The booster, a veteran of nine previous missions, is set to loft a batch of 105 small satellites from customers in 20 nations. The mission is designated Transporter 3, SpaceX\u2019s third large-scale dedicated small satellite rideshare launch.<\/p>\n

For its 10th launch, the booster will head southeast Cape Canaveral, then turn south to fly parallel to the east coast of Florida, taking aim on a polar, sun-synchronous orbit.<\/p>\n

\u201cFalcon 9 will fly along Florida\u2019s eastern coast over the ocean and may be visible from the ground,\u201d SpaceX said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The cylindrical booster stage, scarred with dark exhaust residue from its nine previous launches and landings, will shut down its nine Merlin engines at T+plus 2 minutes, 19 seconds. A \u201cboost-back\u201d burn using three of the rocket\u2019s engines will zero out the first stage\u2019s supersonic downrange velocity, allowing it to reverse course and return to Cape Canaveral for landing about eight-and-a-half minutes after launch.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A Falcon 9 rocket stands vertical on pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for liftoff on SpaceX\u2019s Transporter 3 rideshare mission. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four landing legs will extend from the base of the rocket as it descends toward Landing Zone 1, one of SpaceX\u2019s two rocket landing pads at the military launch station. A single Merlin engine, capable of throttling to control the rocket\u2019s sink rate, will provide the final thrust to guide the rocket toward landing on the concrete pad.<\/p>\n

SpaceX typically lands Falcon 9 boosters on drone ships on missions carrying heavy cargo into space, or flights hauling payloads to high-altitude orbits.<\/p>\n

On launches with lighter payloads, the booster has enough of a propellant reserve to turn itself around using a boost-back burn just after stage separation. That will be the case for the launch Thursday.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s upper stage, meanwhile, will fire its single Merlin engine for six minutes to reach a parking orbit as it flies over the Florida Straits, Cuba, and the Caribbean Sea. After coasting over Antarctica, the second stage will reignite its engine for a brief two-second firing at T+plus 55 minutes to reach the mission\u2019s planned 326-mile-high (525-kilometer) polar orbit to begin a 28-minute sequence of satellite deployments.<\/p>\n

The first of the mission\u2019s satellite payloads will separate from a carrier pod more than 59 minutes into the mission. The last of the payloads will be released at T+plus 1 hour, 27 minutes.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A Falcon 9 rocket descends to a touchdown at Landing Zone 1 after a launch in August 2020. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The payloads on the Transporter 3 mission include 44 SuperDove CubeSats for Planet\u2019s optical Earth observation fleet, five radar remote sensing microsatellites for ICEYE, Capella, and Umbra, and a Ukrainian imaging satellite named Sich 2-1.<\/p>\n

There are numerous other CubeSats and nearly two dozen satellites called PocketQubes, some as small as a soda can.<\/p>\n

The propulsive booster landing after the Transporter 3 mission will mark the 21st touchdown of a Falcon 9 first stage at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and the 102nd intact recovery of a Falcon booster overall. There have been 78 successful booster landings on SpaceX\u2019s fleet of drone ships, and three rocket landings at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A close-up of the top of the Falcon 9 booster stage set for launch with the Transporter 3 rideshare mission. Credit: Michael Cain \/ Spaceflight Now \/ Coldlife Photography SpaceX plans to land a Falcon 9 rocket booster back at Cape Canaveral around eight-and-a-half minutes after launch Thursday in the company\u2019s first onshore rocket recovery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}