{"id":14080,"date":"2018-01-11T22:31:13","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T14:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/after-zuma-spacex-keeps-pace-in-preps-for-next-falcon-9-launch\/"},"modified":"2018-01-11T22:31:13","modified_gmt":"2018-01-11T14:31:13","slug":"after-zuma-spacex-keeps-pace-in-preps-for-next-falcon-9-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/after-zuma-spacex-keeps-pace-in-preps-for-next-falcon-9-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"After Zuma, SpaceX keeps pace in preps for next Falcon 9 launch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Sunday with the U.S. government\u2019s mysterious Zuma payload. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ground crews took steps this week to prepare for the next Falcon 9 launch, set for no earlier than Jan. 30 with a telecom satellite for SES and the Luxembourg government, as SpaceX officials stressed their rocket was not to blame for the rumored loss of a mysterious U.S. government payload after liftoff Sunday.<\/p>\n

The next satellite assigned to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has arrived at Cape Canaveral ahead of a planned Jan. 30 liftoff from pad 40 on a previously-flown SpaceX booster.<\/p>\n

The launch window Jan. 30 opens at 4:23 p.m. EST (2123 GMT) and extends for 134 minutes.<\/p>\n

Technicians will fuel the satellite, named GovSat 1, with hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide maneuvering propellant in the coming days, then close it up inside the Falcon 9\u2019s clamshell-like payload fairing.<\/p>\n

SES officials confirmed this week that satellite and rocket preps are on track for Jan. 30. A recycled Falcon 9 booster stage that first flew May 1 with the U.S. government\u2019s classified NROL-76 payload will hoist the GovSat 1 spacecraft toward orbit, and a factory-fresh second stage will finish the job.<\/p>\n

The GovSat 1 satellite, also known as SES 16, is owned by GovSat, a public-private joint venture between the government of Luxembourg and SES. Built by Orbital ATK in Dulles, Virginia, the spacecraft will head for geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator, where its military-grade X-band and Ka-band payload will support services from the Atlantic Ocean to the Middle East, including Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic Sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to our mission of providing secure satellite communication services for governments and institutions,\u201d said Patrick Biewer, GovSat\u2019s CEO. \u201cGovSat 1, with its highly flexible payload featuring advanced encryption and anti-jamming capabilities, will further secure the connectivity for our users\u2019 applications. We are incredibly excited about the upcoming launch of this satellite.\u201d<\/p>\n

GovSat will share the satellite\u2019s communications capacity with Luxembourg\u2019s NATO allies.<\/p>\n

Few details on the fate of the Zuma mission were available Thursday, four days after the top secret payload lifted off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

But numerous news reports, citing unnamed government sources, said the satellite apparently re-entered Earth\u2019s atmosphere after failing to deploy from the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage. If true, the spacecraft and rocket likely fell into the Indian Ocean, where the Falcon 9 second stage was to re-enter after releasing Zuma in orbit.<\/p>\n

The U.S. military\u2019s official catalog of human-made objects in space recorded an object that reached orbit attributed to Sunday\u2019s Falcon 9 flight. The object was named USA-280 in the catalog and identified as a payload. The name is in line with the \u201cUSA\u201d naming system used for spacecraft owned by the U.S. military and government intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n

Quoting a military spokesperson, Bloomberg reported the U.S. government was not tracking any items in orbit from Sunday\u2019s launch. The catalogued object dubbed USA-280 could have been in error, as occurred after a failed Landsat satellite launch in the 1990s, or the payload may no longer be in orbit, assuming it re-entered with the Falcon 9 upper stage within a few hours of launch.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg also reported members of Congress have requested a classified briefing on the Zuma mission.<\/p>\n

A network of amateur satellite trackers are on the lookout for Zuma in case it is still in orbit, but they are working off an estimate of its expected location, and it could take weeks to find the spacecraft, assuming it is still in space and is orbiting where predicted.<\/p>\n

One of the most experienced trackers, an archaeologist named Marco Langbroek, shared an image taken by a Dutch pilot flying over Sudan around 2 hours and 15 minutes after the Falcon 9\u2019s launch from Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

Langbroek wrote in a blog post that he believes the image shows the Falcon 9\u2019s upper stage dumping excess propellant after a de-orbit burn to drive it back into Earth\u2019s atmosphere. The location and appearance of the sighting matched where the Falcon 9 and Zuma should have been orbiting, based on trackers\u2019 pre-flight predictions, and was similar to fuel dumps observed after other launches.<\/p>\n