{"id":16536,"date":"2015-02-20T19:09:58","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T11:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/ses-signs-up-for-launch-with-more-powerful-falcon-9-engines\/"},"modified":"2015-02-20T19:09:58","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T11:09:58","slug":"ses-signs-up-for-launch-with-more-powerful-falcon-9-engines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/ses-signs-up-for-launch-with-more-powerful-falcon-9-engines\/","title":{"rendered":"SES signs up for launch with more powerful Falcon 9 engines"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A
A Falcon 9 rocket launches Feb. 11 with NOAA\u2019s Deep Space Climate Observatory. Credit: NASA\/Tony Gray<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A communications payload owned by the Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES will ride the first launch of an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket in mid-2015, SES officials said Friday.<\/p>\n

The decision comes after a review of the risks of launching the SES 9 satellite with rocket engines operating at higher thrust for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a very stringent protocol to validate all these sorts of either new launchers or upgrades to existing launchers,\u201d said Karim Sabbagh, president and CEO of SES.<\/p>\n

SpaceX plans to launch the telecom satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in June or July, and the launcher\u2019s nine Merlin 1D main engines will produce more power than on previous flights.<\/p>\n

The closely-held Hawthorne, Calif.-based launch company has not disclosed what physical upgrades are present in the more powerful engines, or how much additional thrust the powerplants will generate.<\/p>\n

The nine Merlin 1D booster engines are arranged in an \u201coctaweb\u201d pattern on the base of the Falcon 9 rocket, and a single Merlin engine optimized for firing in space powers the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage.<\/p>\n

\"Nine
Nine Merlin 1D engines arranged in an \u201coctaweb\u201d configuration on the Falcon 9 rocket\u2019s first stage. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SES chief technology officer Martin Halliwell told reporters in January that the upgrade gave the Merlin engines about 20 percent more thrust, according to a story published in Space News.<\/p>\n

Sabbagh said Friday that the SES engineering team endorsed the launch of SES 9 on the maiden flight of the upgraded Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n

Built by Boeing Satellite Systems, the SES 9 satellite needs the extra boost to reach its planned egg-shaped transfer orbit en route to a final perch 22,300 miles over the equator.<\/p>\n

SES 9 has a launch mass of about 5,300 kilograms (11,684 pounds), heavier than any payload yet launched by a Falcon 9 rocket toward the geostationary orbit preferred for large telecom satellites.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9 rocket will deploy SES 9 shy of its intended operating post, and the spacecraft will use a mix of conventional hydrazine-fueled thrusters and electrically-powered propulsion to reshape its orbit and reach its final location.<\/p>\n

SES 9 will be parked in geostationary orbit at 108.2 degrees east longitude, where it will hover over the Asia-Pacific, broadcasting direct-to-home television and linking maritime customers in the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

SES considers the SES 9 satellite a significant revenue driver, and its 84 Ku-band transponders grow the company\u2019s reach in the Asia-Pacific market.<\/p>\n

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

A Falcon 9 rocket launches Feb. 11 with NOAA\u2019s Deep Space Climate Observatory. Credit: NASA\/Tony Gray A communications payload owned by the Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES will ride the first launch of an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket in mid-2015, SES officials said Friday. The decision comes after a review of the risks of launching 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":[479,2291,1043,3787,316,1611],"class_list":["post-16536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-falcon-9","tag-merlin-1d","tag-ses","tag-ses-9","tag-spacex","tag-telecom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16536"}],"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=16536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}