{"id":14085,"date":"2018-01-09T22:40:20","date_gmt":"2018-01-09T14:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/fate-of-mystery-zuma-satellite-in-question\/"},"modified":"2018-01-09T22:40:20","modified_gmt":"2018-01-09T14:40:20","slug":"fate-of-mystery-zuma-satellite-in-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/fate-of-mystery-zuma-satellite-in-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Fate of mystery Zuma satellite in question"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 8 p.m. EDT Sunday (0100 GMT Monday) from Cape Canaveral with the Zuma mission. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A classified satellite code-named Zuma, launched Sunday night atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, may have suffered a mission-ending failure during or shortly after the climb to space, according to news accounts Monday evening.<\/p>\n

Kicking off a busy year for SpaceX, the Falcon 9 blasted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 8 p.m. EST (GMT-5) Sunday, putting on a spectacular show as it streaked away on a northeasterly trajectory.<\/p>\n

Because the payload was classified, SpaceX commentators revealed nothing about the satellite, which government agency owns it or when it was expected to be released from the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage. No details about its intended orbit \u2014 or its purpose \u2014 were revealed.<\/p>\n

SpaceX mission commentary covered the initial minutes of the launch, ignition of the rocket\u2019s second stage, jettison of a protective payload fairing and landing of the first stage back at the Air Force station. But in keeping with plans announced before launch, the company did not discuss any aspects of the payload or its intended orbit.<\/p>\n

That is standard procedure for classified missions. But in the wake of most such missions, the responsible agency \u2014 usually the Air Force \u2014 releases a post-launch statement several hours later to indicate the overall result. Reporters expected a statement of some sort from Zuma\u2019s builder, Northrop Grumman, but the company said nothing Sunday night.<\/p>\n

On Monday, rumors began swirling about a possible failure. When asked about an update, a Northrup Grumman spokesman said only that \u201cthis is a classified mission. We cannot comment on classified missions.\u201d<\/p>\n

A SpaceX spokesman said \u201cwe do not comment on missions of this nature. But as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally.\u201d<\/p>\n

That would indicate the presumed problem did not involve the Falcon 9. But the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources Monday saying \u201cthe secret payload \u2026 is believed to have plummeted back into the atmosphere \u2026 because it didn\u2019t separate as planned from the upper stage of the rocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reuters also reported the satellite \u201cfailed to separate from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket and is assumed to have broken up or plunged into the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reports were at odds with the U.S. catalog of orbital payloads, which listed Zuma as USA 280. In addition, amateur satellite trackers believe the second stage re-entered the atmosphere where it was expected to end its mission, indicating a normal flight plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpace-Track has cataloged the Zuma payload as USA 280, international designation 2018-001A. Catalog number 43098,\u201d tweeted Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer who tracks rocket launchings. \u201cNo orbit details given. No reentry date given, but for a secret payload it might not be. Implication is Space-Track thinks it completed at least one orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cConflicts with WSJ story that payload failed to separate from second stage (which is believed to have deorbited itself),\u201d he continued. \u201cConsistent with SpaceX claim that rocket behaved correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it was \u201cstill possible that payload did not power up at separation, would account for at least part of today\u2019s rumors of a failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

But McDowell cautioned Space-Track \u201ccould be wrong in cataloging the object,\u201d which happened at least once before with a Landsat failure in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of details about what occurred means that some possible alternate sequence of events other than a failed separation may have been the culprit,\u201d the Wall Street Journal said.<\/p>\n

Satellites can fall victim to any number of failures and malfunctions after separation from their boosters. Solar arrays must unfold as plan to re-charge batteries, for example, radios have to activate for commanding, flight computers must carry out stored programs as planned. And so it goes.<\/p>\n

As of Monday evening, the status of Zuma was unknown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 8 p.m. EDT Sunday (0100 GMT Monday) from Cape Canaveral with the Zuma mission. Credit: SpaceX A classified satellite code-named Zuma, launched Sunday night atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, may have suffered a mission-ending failure during or shortly after the […]<\/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":[291,1736,479,1950,25,554,316,2989],"class_list":["post-14085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-space","tag-complex-40","tag-falcon-9","tag-landing-zone-1","tag-launch","tag-northrop-grumman","tag-spacex","tag-zuma"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14085"}],"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=14085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}