Early on Friday morning, SpaceX launched a commercial communications satellite into orbit with a NASA Earth science experiment aboard (April 7).
Around 12:30 a.m. EDT(0430 GMT), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, delivering the Intelsat 40e satellite into geostationary transfer orbit.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 safely landed on the company’s drone ship A Shortfall Of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean little under nine minutes after liftoff. This was the booster’s fourth flight, and it will probably launch again in the future.
Around 32.5 minutes after launch, the rocket’s top stage successfully delivered Intelsat.
Intelsat 40e is a cutting-edge geostationary satellite that will offer high-speed connection to the company’s corporate and government clients throughout North and Central America.
The satellite, which was built by Colorado-based Maxar Technologies, also carries NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) as a hosted payload.
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Around 22,000 miles (36,000 kilometres) above the equator, Intelsat 40e will be positioned at 91 degrees West in a geostationary orbit (GEO). The satellite will thereafter carry out its primary communications function while also enabling TEMPO to gather hourly images of air pollution across North America.
In contrast to those in low Earth orbit, which completes about 16 orbits every 24 hours and may only pass over a certain place once per day, geostationary satellites virtually seem in a constant position over Earth.
To find concentrations of important pollutants including nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, and ozone in the lower troposphere, TEMPO will monitor ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light spectra.
During a news conference with reporters on April 5, Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division, stated, “We have numerous additional missions that make studies of atmospheric components and atmospheric composition.” The geostationary appearance will be the true distinctive feature of TEMPO.
In comparison to past missions, it will also offer data with a far greater resolution, said St. Germain.
Ball Aerospace created TEMPO, which has a 20-month main mission but may continue operating after that. The Intelsat 40e satellite itself is powered by two large solar arrays and is expected to last for at least 15 years.
During the media call, representatives from Maxar and NASA praised the hosted payload strategy.
According to Aaron Abell, TEMPO project manager at Maxar, “the TEMPO initiative really is a win-win-win for the key groups participating.” “It enables the utilisation of spare space on Maxar’s classic satellite architecture for government missions. Because Intelsat gets paid for their assistance with the TEMPO mission, this lowers the cost of access to space for the government as well as for Intelsat.”
According to Kevin Daugherty, project manager for TEMPO at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, the overall cost to NASA is around $210 million. “Well over $90 million of money was used to build the instrument itself. The remaining money has gone towards paying our vendors for hosting TEMPO and integration as well as some ongoing support engineering and management.”
NASA is working on a “lessons learned session” to consider the best ways to deploy and handle similar collaborations with commercial players in the future, Daugherty continued.
The Falcon 9’s touchdown on Friday marked SpaceX’s 184th orbital rocket landing overall and its 23rd launch of the year.