{"id":14514,"date":"2017-06-23T18:03:43","date_gmt":"2017-06-23T10:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/bulgarias-first-communications-satellite-heaved-into-orbit\/"},"modified":"2017-06-23T18:03:43","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T10:03:43","slug":"bulgarias-first-communications-satellite-heaved-into-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/bulgarias-first-communications-satellite-heaved-into-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria\u2019s first communications satellite heaved into orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Launching into a sun-splashed summertime afternoon sky, a previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit from Florida\u2019s east coast Friday with a U.S.-built, Bulgarian-owned television broadcasting satellite.<\/p>\n

In a secondary objective, the Falcon 9\u2019s first stage booster descended back to Earth and slowed down for a jarring touchdown on SpaceX\u2019s drone ship holding position several hundred miles east of Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

The successful launch and landing is the first of two back-to-back Falcon 9 launches planned by SpaceX. A separate launch team is preparing a Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff Sunday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.<\/p>\n

Running one hour late to conduct additional ground system verifications, the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) two-stage rocket lit its nine Merlin 1D main engines, passed a nearly instantaneous automated readiness check, and climbed away from launch pad 39A at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center at 3:10 p.m. EDT (1910 GMT).<\/p>\n

Navigating east from Florida\u2019s Space Coast, the Falcon 9 rocket arced over the Atlantic Ocean on 1.7 million pounds of thrust, soaring to an altitude of more than 44 miles (70 kilometers) before the booster\u2019s first stage shut down and fell away.<\/p>\n

Pushers ensured a clean separation of the Falcon 9\u2019s first and second stage, and the booster reignited a subset of its engines for a re-entry braking burn, then three of its Merlin powerplants fired on final descent to slow down for landing on SpaceX\u2019s drone ship, dubbed \u201cOf Course I Still Love You.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four landing legs extended from the base of the booster just before touchdown. A live video feed from the landing barge cut out during landing, but the first stage was visible on the ship with an apparent lean when video resumed.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk, SpaceX\u2019s founder and CEO, tweeted that the Falcon 9\u2019s first stage endured its highest-ever re-entry force and heat on Friday\u2019s descent. The Falcon 9 rocket aimed to heave the 8,150-pound (3,700-kilogram) BulgariaSat 1 satellite into a supersynchronous transfer orbit ranging more than 37,000 miles (60,000 kilometers) from Earth.<\/p>\n

The fuel needed to loft BulgariaSat 1 into such a high orbit left less propellant in the first stage\u2019s tanks for braking maneuvers on descent.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood chance rocket booster doesn\u2019t make it back,\u201d Musk tweeted before the launch.<\/p>\n

It turns out the first stage survived the landing, the 12th time SpaceX has recovered one of its rockets intact in 17 tries. The last eight booster landing attempts have been successful over the last year, including recoveries at sea and on land.<\/p>\n

\u201cRocket is extra toasty and hit the deck hard (used almost all of the emergency crush core), but otherwise good,\u201d Musk tweeted after Friday\u2019s landing.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A view of the Falcon 9\u2019s first stage booster on SpaceX\u2019s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean after Friday\u2019s launch. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SpaceX has not said if it intends to reuse the first stage recovered Friday, which made it back to Earth for the second time. The 14-story rocket stage first flew Jan. 14 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, sending 10 Iridium communications satellites toward orbit before landing on SpaceX\u2019s other drone ship, named \u201cJust Read the Instructions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s mission was the second time SpaceX has reused one of its rockets, coming three months after the company deployed a commercial SES communications craft with a different recycled booster stage. That vehicle is now retired, and SpaceX says it will go on display somewhere at Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

The rocket reuse effort is geared toward reducing the cost of space launches.<\/p>\n

SpaceX also has not said when the next Falcon 9 will launch with a previously-flown first stage, but the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket later this year will use two reused side-mounted Falcon boosters, along with a newly-built core. The heavy-lifter will be powered by 27 engines at liftoff from three modified Falcon 9 first stages bolted together.<\/p>\n

While the first stage returned to a landing in the Atlantic, the Falcon 9\u2019s expendable upper stage steered the BulgariaSat 1 satellite into orbit with two engine firings. The robotic broadcasting station, built by Space Systems\/Loral in Palo Alto, California, released from the Falcon 9\u2019s upper stage around 35 minutes into the mission.<\/p>\n

Maxim Zayakov, CEO of BulgariaSat and its affiliate Bulsatcom, said the satellite was healthy following Friday\u2019s launch. He said ground controllers established contact with BulgariaSat 1 as expected a few minutes after deployment from the launcher.<\/p>\n

Power-generating solar arrays were scheduled to unfurl on the satellite later Friday, and a series of on-board engine burns will reshape BulgariaSat 1\u2019s orbit at an altitude of around 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator over the next 10 days, Zayakov said.<\/p>\n

The satellite should enter service in geostationary orbit by early August, starting a 15-year mission beaming television across Bulgaria, Serbia and neighboring regions in the Balkans. Controllers will park BulgariaSat 1 along the equator at 1.9 degrees east, where its movement around Earth will match the rate of the planet\u2019s rotation, giving the spacecraft constant coverage over Europe.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s concept of the BulgariaSat 1 satellite in orbit. Credit: SSL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In an interview with Spaceflight Now before the launch, he credited SpaceX\u2019s cost-cutting ways with making space accessible for small nations and money-conscious companies like his own.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t realize that, for small countries and small companies like us, without SpaceX, there was no way we would ever be able to even think about space,\u201d Zayakov said. \u201cWith them, it was possible. We got a project. I think, in the future, it\u2019s going to be even more affordable because of reusability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BulgariaSat 1 project cost $235 million, Zayakov said, including the purchase of the satellite from Space Systems\/Loral, launch services, insurance and ground systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe satellite is a huge thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big milestone and gives us a chance for regional development, more presence in the region, as well as throughout Europe, where we have our main coverage. For my country \u2026 It\u2019s the first geostationary communications satellite. It also is going to utilize our national orbital slot, which is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The terms of the satellite contract made SSL responsible for booking the launch with SpaceX, along with procuring insurance coverage, and BulgariaSat will take control of the spacecraft once it is ready to begin service in orbit.<\/p>\n

Zayakov said BulgariaSat saw no financial benefit from swapping a new rocket for a used one, and any discount in the deal went to SSL.<\/p>\n

\u201cSSL engineers who work with all the launch providers were involved in this case, and they were convinced of the overall reliability of the booster to reuse it,\u201d Zayakov said in an interview.<\/p>\n

Bulsatcom\u2019s satellite television channels will be broadcast through BulgariaSat 1 into homes and businesses across Bulgaria. A Bulsatcom subsidiary in neighboring Serbia will also relay TV channels through BulgariaSat 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe significance is the project is of a big size for small country, and a relatively small company by world standards,\u201d Zayakov said. \u201cWe now have about 900,000 subscribers between Bulgaria and the adjacent country of Serbia, and that is something, but in the grand scheme of things, compared with large companies, we\u2019re not that big.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bulsatcom currently leases transponders on Hellas-Sat 2, a 14-year-old satellite launched from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas 5 rocket in 2003. BulgariaSat 1 will add significantly more capacity to the company\u2019s network.<\/p>\n

\u201cTV is the focus,\u201d Zayakov said of BulgariaSat 1. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to provide much higher quality and much better quantity of services to our customers, not only in our country, but also in the region, and trying to expand. Certainly, more HDTV and some 4K channels.<\/p>\n

\u201c4K is beautiful, of course, for sports,\u201d he added. \u201cWe don\u2019t have anything in 4K whatsoever right now. This is an opportunity right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

BulgariaSat 1\u2019s launch was pushed back from June 15, first by delays in a previous Falcon 9 launch, then to replace a pneumatic valve on the rocket\u2019s payload fairing, the composite shroud that covered the satellite during the first few minutes of flight.<\/p>\n

The smooth flight Friday sets the stage for another Falcon 9 mission \u2014 an all-new vehicle \u2014 set for blastoff at 4:25 p.m. EDT (2025 GMT; 1:25 p.m. PDT) Sunday from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg. The launcher will deliver 10 more satellites to join Iridium\u2019s upgraded mobile voice and data relay network, comprising dozens of spacecraft orbiting a few hundred miles up.<\/p>\n

SpaceX has not launched two Falcon 9 rockets in such a short timespan before.<\/p>\n

The next Falcon 9 mission from Florida is scheduled some time next month with the Intelsat 35e communications satellite.<\/p>\n

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

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

Credit: SpaceX Launching into a sun-splashed summertime afternoon sky, a previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit from Florida\u2019s east coast Friday with a U.S.-built, Bulgarian-owned television broadcasting satellite. In a secondary objective, the Falcon 9\u2019s first stage booster descended back to Earth and slowed down for a jarring touchdown on SpaceX\u2019s drone ship […]<\/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":[2955,3264,3265,291,1573,479,428,25],"class_list":["post-14514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bulgaria","tag-bulgariasat","tag-bulgariasat-1","tag-commercial-space","tag-drone-ship","tag-falcon-9","tag-kennedy-space-center","tag-launch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14514"}],"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=14514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}