Photo: Charles Boyer / FMN
A SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying a telecommunications satellite for Swedish-American company Ovzon lifted off from Pad SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Station at 6:04pm EST this evening. After carrying its part of the mission, the booster used for the mission returned for a successful landing at Space-X’s Landing Zone 1 only a short distance away.
Today’s launch was the first of the year from Florida, kicking off what promises to be a record-breaking year for the Eastern Range. The destination for the payload is geostationary orbit, and it will take about ninety days to arrive at its planned location. Once there, Ovzon-3 will be tested and ultimately provide telecommunications services to the company’s customers.
Photo: Mark Stone / FMN
This was the tenth for Booster B-1076. It previously launched CRS-26, OneWeb Launch 16, Intelsat IS-40e, O3b mPOWER, and five Starlink missions. The booster will be transported to SpaceX’s “Hangar X” facility at Kennedy Space Center, where it will be inspected, refurbished, and prepared for its next mission.
According to Ovzon’s website, ” [Ovzon-3 is] the most powerful GEO (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit) satellite ever to be put into orbit covering 1/3 of the earth via its steerable spot beams. The satellite carries Ovzon’s patented solution with high power steerable beams and unique software-defined capabilities.” According to the company, Ovzon’s system also adds resiliency. They say that it can continue to operate without the ground-based segment of its architecture and is also resistant to signal jamming and other countermeasures designed to interrupt communications.
Next Launch
This coming Sunday, SpaceX is ostensibly planning to launch another batch of Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from the same launch pad they used this evening, SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch window begins at 4:00pm and extends until 8:31pm Eastern Standard Time.
That’s mere hours before the inaugural launch of Vulcan, United Launch Alliance’s new rocket. SpaceX has not formally announced this launch as of 9:00pm this evening, January 3rd. That said, the date and time of the Starlink mission is subject to change.
Note: this article originally appeared at Talk of Titusville
