{"id":54174,"date":"2023-01-18T00:53:08","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T16:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-launches-falcon-heavy-mission-for-us-space-force-with-boeing-and-northrop-grumman-satellites\/"},"modified":"2023-01-18T00:53:08","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T16:53:08","slug":"spacex-launches-falcon-heavy-mission-for-us-space-force-with-boeing-and-northrop-grumman-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-launches-falcon-heavy-mission-for-us-space-force-with-boeing-and-northrop-grumman-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Launches Falcon Heavy Mission for US Space Force with Boeing and Northrop Grumman Satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"

A SpaceX<\/strong> Falcon Heavy rocket lofted the Boeing<\/strong> and Northrop Grumman<\/strong> communications satellites into orbit on Jan. 15 from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the USSF-67 mission for the U.S. Space Force<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The mission launched Boeing\u2019s Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM (CBAS)-2 satellite and Northrop Grumman\u2019s Long Duration Propulsive ESPA (LDPE)-3A satellite.<\/p>\n

The USSF-67 mission was the first by SpaceX under the Space Force\u2019s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 contract, according to the Space Force\u2019s Space Systems Command (SSC).<\/p>\n

The first CBAS Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) satellite launched in 2018. Based on Northrop Grumman\u2019s ESPAStar satellite bus, the LDPE series is to transition to Northrop Grumman\u2019s planned Rapid On-orbit Space Technology Evaluation Ring (ROOSTER) \u201cfreight train to space\u201d after LDPE-3. Northrop Grumman said that the ESPAStar has hardware to enable five independent deployments per mission. LDPE-3A is to have a one-year mission life in near GEO, per Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n

Northrop Grumman said that USSF-67 is the third in the LDPE series since December 2021 when LDPE-1 launched aboard the DoD Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) mission. LDPE-2 launched on the USSF-44 mission in November last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cA prominent innovation developed by SpaceX and adopted by the U.S. Space Force is booster reusability,\u201d SSC said on Jan. 15. \u201cThe side boosters for USSF-67 were the same ones used for USSF-44, which launched from the Eastern Range on Nov. 1, 2022. The efficiencies garnered from reusability benefit all customers, adding flexibility to a dynamic launch queue and cost savings.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office in August 2020 awarded United Launch Alliance (ULA) \u2014 a Lockheed Martin\/Boeing partnership \u2014 a $337 million contract for two classified launches under NSSL Phase 2 and SpaceX a $316 million contract for a classified launch under NSSL Phase 2.<\/p>\n

CBAS-2 is \u201cto provide communications relay capabilities in support of our senior leaders and combatant commanders,\u201d SSC said on Jan. 15. \u201cThe mission of CBAS-2 is to augment existing military satellite communication capabilities and continuously broadcast military data through space-based satellite relay links.\u201d<\/p>\n

LDPE-3A will \u201crapidly place multiple, diverse payloads into orbit and provide critical data to inform and influence future U.S. Space Force programs,\u201d per SSC. \u201cThis LDPE-3A mission includes two SSC payloads: catcher and WASSAT, and three payloads developed by the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (SRCO). The SRCO payloads include two operational prototypes for enhanced situational awareness, and an operational prototype crypto\/interface encryption payload providing secure space-to-ground communications capability.  The LDPE spacecraft will continue to provide access to space for multiple DoD space Science & Technology (S&T) demonstration experiments.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was first published by Via Satellite sister publication Defense Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lofted the Boeing and Northrop Grumman communications satellites into orbit on Jan. 15 from NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the USSF-67 mission for the U.S. Space Force. The mission launched Boeing\u2019s Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM (CBAS)-2 satellite and Northrop Grumman\u2019s Long Duration Propulsive ESPA (LDPE)-3A satellite. The USSF-67 mission was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54175,"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":[],"class_list":["post-54174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54174"}],"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=54174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}