{"id":15485,"date":"2016-05-27T17:26:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-27T09:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-logs-successful-late-afternoon-launch-for-thaicom\/"},"modified":"2016-05-27T17:26:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T09:26:00","slug":"spacex-logs-successful-late-afternoon-launch-for-thaicom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-logs-successful-late-afternoon-launch-for-thaicom\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX logs successful late afternoon launch for Thaicom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"CjfqPJPUYAAIqBl\"
The Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral\u2019s Complex 40 launch pad at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT) Friday in this view from the roof the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral and climbed into space Friday, propelling a Thai television relay satellite into orbit and achieving its third dramatic ocean landing in a row, adding to SpaceX\u2019s growing inventory of recovered rocket boosters.<\/p>\n

Flying into crystal clear skies over Florida\u2019s sun-splashed Space Coast, the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket slowly cleared Cape Canaveral\u2019s Complex 40 launch pad on the power of nine kerosene-burning Merlin 1D main engines at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT).<\/p>\n

Running a day late to allow SpaceX to review a glitch in an upper stage engine actuator, the slender white launcher, topped with a bulbous aerodynamic shroud covering the Thaicom 8 communications satellite, tilted on an easterly trajectory over the Atlantic Ocean, bound for an equator-hugging geostationary transfer orbit.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9\u2019s second stage, powered by a single Merlin engine, fired two times to inject Thaicom 8 into the correct orbit. Separation of the spacecraft, made by Orbital ATK in Virginia, occurred approximately 32 minutes after liftoff.<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s first stage booster used cold gas nitrogen thrusters to flip around moments after its release high in the atmosphere, then fired a subset of its nine engines while flying tail first to slow down and settle to a landing on a specially-outfitted barge positioned 420 miles (680 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

The landing was a secondary objective, but it is a key facet of SpaceX\u2019s plan to cut launch costs by reusing Falcon 9 booster stages for more than one mission.<\/p>\n

\"The
The 156-foot-tall Falcon 9 first stage sits on the SpaceX drone ship \u201cOf Course I Still Love You\u201d downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, SpaceX declared success on the primary goal of Friday\u2019s mission moments after the Thaicom 8 satellite sailed away from the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage over Africa.<\/p>\n

Engineers programmed the rocket to target a \u201csupersynchronous\u201d transfer orbit, a trajectory with a high point of more than 56,000 miles (90,000 kilometers) and a minimum altitude of about 124 miles (250 kilometers), according to an official with Thaicom, the satellite\u2019s Bangkok-based owner and operator.<\/p>\n

The rocket reached an on-target orbit Friday, completing the Falcon 9\u2019s 25th mission since its debut in June 2010. Friday\u2019s flight was the fifth SpaceX launch of 2016, and the second this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cSatellite deployed to 91,000 km apogee,\u201d SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk tweeted. \u201cAll looks good.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the second time SpaceX launched a dedicated mission for Thaicom.<\/p>\n

The 6,669-pound (3,025-kilogram) Thaicom 8 satellite, based on Orbital ATK\u2019s GEOStar 2 spacecraft bus, will steer into a circular geostationary orbit over the coming weeks, using its on-board thruster to move into an orbit about 22,300 miles (35,700 kilometers) over the equator.<\/p>\n

Thaicom 8 should be ready to enter service around July 1, according to Patompob Suwansiri, Thaicom\u2019s chief commercial officer.<\/p>\n

It will be co-located in a geostationary orbital slot at 78.5 degrees east with the Thaicom 5 and Thaicom 6 satellites, adding capacity for the company\u2019s television broadcast portfolio, which currently totals more than 700 channels of programming.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Thaicom 8 is going to do is actually increase the capacity for satellite TV in the region,\u201d Suwansiri told Spaceflight Now in an interview Thursday. \u201cParticularly, right now there is a lot of conversion from standard definition to high definition, and ultimately in the future to to 4K (Ultra HD), so the Thaicom 8 satellite will serve to expand our services, ultimately to 4K.\u201d<\/p>\n

In documents submitted to the Thai stock exchange in 2014, Thaicom said the new satellite\u2019s construction and launch services would cost about $178 million. That figure does not include insurance, which Thaicom procured later.<\/p>\n

Suwansiri said Thaicom has sold 17 percent of the new satellite\u2019s payload capacity, which includes 24 Ku-band transponders. The company aims to sell up to 50 percent of the transponder capacity within a year of the launch.<\/p>\n

The launch of Thaicom 8 is a case of repeat business for Thaicom, Orbital ATK and SpaceX. Thaicom ordered the satellite and launch services soon after a Falcon 9 rocket deployed the Thaicom 6 communications craft in orbit in January 2014.<\/p>\n

Thaicom was also involved in the launch of a satellite for AsiaSat of Hong Kong later in 2014. The Thai operator reserved half of the AsiaSat 8 satellite\u2019s communications capacity, branding its portion of the payload Thaicom 7.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Thaicom 8 satellite flies away from the Falcon 9 rocket as it soars in orbital darkness over Africa. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a very good experience,\u201d Suwansiri said. \u201cThey are very innovative, and they are very cost-effective, so we are very pleased with their service.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9\u2019s first stage landing in the Atlantic Ocean gives SpaceX four previously-flown boosters in its inventory.<\/p>\n

One of the returned rocket bodies, which made the first successful landing on land in December, will be put on display at SpaceX\u2019s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. A rocket that landed at sea after blasting off with Japan\u2019s JCSAT 14 communications satellite May 6 withstood intense heating and aerodynamic pressures during its descent. SpaceX will keep that vehicle on the ground for a series of tests to ensure future boosters can safely fly again.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9 stage that made the first-ever landing on the offshore barge, or drone ship, in April is the vehicle SpaceX wants to launch again.<\/p>\n

SpaceX intends to send its next Falcon 9 rocket into orbit in mid-June, perhaps as soon as June 16 around 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT), with two Boeing-built communications stations for Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite.<\/p>\n

That will be followed by another SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral on July 16 with a Dragon supply ship heading for the International Space Station. SpaceX hopes to return its Falcon 9 booster to a landing zone on shore on that flight, the first time the company has attempted such a return-to-launch-site maneuver since a landing in December.<\/p>\n

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

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

The Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral\u2019s Complex 40 launch pad at 5:39 p.m. EDT (2139 GMT) Friday in this view from the roof the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building. Credit: SpaceX A Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral and climbed into space Friday, propelling a Thai television relay satellite into orbit […]<\/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":[1736,1573,479,991,2899,311,316,1611],"class_list":["post-15485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-complex-40","tag-drone-ship","tag-falcon-9","tag-of-course-i-still-love-you","tag-orbital-atk","tag-reusability","tag-spacex","tag-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15485"}],"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=15485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}