{"id":18022,"date":"2019-06-13T00:22:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-12T16:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-radarsat-constellation-with-booster-returning-for-foggy-landing\/"},"modified":"2019-06-13T00:22:12","modified_gmt":"2019-06-12T16:22:12","slug":"spacex-launches-radarsat-constellation-with-booster-returning-for-foggy-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-radarsat-constellation-with-booster-returning-for-foggy-landing\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX launches Radarsat constellation, with booster returning for foggy landing"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_504331\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-504331\" style=\"width: 615px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-504331\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190612-spacex4.jpg\" alt=\"SpaceX launch\" width=\"615\" height=\"404\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190612-spacex4.jpg 615w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190612-spacex4-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190612-spacex4-200x131.jpg 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/190612-spacex4-150x100.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-504331\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket rises above the fog surrounding California\u2019s Vandenberg Air Force Base, sending three Canadian radar-sensing satellites spaceward. (SpaceX via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rose out of California\u2019s coastal fog today to send three radar-sensing satellites into orbit for the Canadian government.<\/p>\n<p>Little could be seen from the ground when the rocket lifted off at 7:17 a.m. PT from Vandenberg Air Force Base, but that didn\u2019t matter to the three satellites tucked inside the Falcon 9\u2019s nose cone for the Radarsat Constellation Mission.<\/p>\n<p>The satellites, built by Maxar Technologies\u2019 MDA division, are designed to observe Earth from sun-synchronous orbit using C-band synthetic aperture radar. The Radarsat Constellation Mission follows up on two previous generations of Canadian Radarsat spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p>Such radar instruments will produce high-resolution, daily scans of Canada and the Arctic \u2014 revealing the status of sea ice, crop moisture and terrain features even when the skies are obscured by clouds. Or fog, for that matter.<\/p>\n<p>Minutes after launch, the Falcon 9\u2019s second stage separated and pressed onward to orbit. Meanwhile, the rocket\u2019s first-stage booster \u2014 which was previously used to send a Crew Dragon spaceship to the International Space Station on an uncrewed test mission in March \u2014 successfully flew itself back down through the murk to SpaceX\u2019s Landing Zone 4 at Vandenberg, not far from where it took off.<\/p>\n<p>The touchdown was cheered by scores of SpaceX employees watching the video feed from the company\u2019s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. The booster will be refurbished for yet another launch, just as it was after March\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n<p>About an hour after launch, the three Radarsat satellites were deployed into their proper orbits, roughly 600 kilometers (370 miles) above Earth\u2019s surface. The trio is designed for an operating life of seven years.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"SpaceX RCM mission: Falcon 9 launch and landing\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Hw8kDUabB1U?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>This is an updated version of a report that was first published at 7:45 a.m. PT June 12. We\u2019ve corrected a reference to the time of liftoff.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket rises above the fog surrounding California\u2019s Vandenberg Air Force Base, sending three Canadian radar-sensing satellites spaceward. (SpaceX via YouTube) A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rose out of California\u2019s coastal fog today to send three radar-sensing satellites into orbit for the Canadian government. Little could be seen from the ground when the [&hellip;]<\/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":[584,479,4434,67,5006,20,442,316],"class_list":["post-18022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-canada","tag-falcon-9","tag-falcon-launch","tag-radar","tag-radarsat","tag-satellite","tag-satellites","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18022"}],"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=18022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}