Update 5:24 a.m. EDT: SpaceX launched the Starlink 8-9 mission and landed the booster, B1073, on the droneship ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’

SpaceX launched a batch of Starlink satellites using a booster that ran into technical issues during the final seconds of its last launch attempt. The launch was the first of the month for the company, which is aiming for an average of 12 Falcon flights per month in 2024.

Liftoff of the Starlink 8-9 mission from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 UTC). It added another 20 Starlink satellites to the growing megaconstellation.

Coming into the launch attempt, the 45th Weather Squadron forecast an 80 percent chance of favorable weather during the roughly four-hour launch window. The only potential concern was the presence of cumulus clouds in the area near the pad.

The first stage booster supporting this mission, B1073 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for a 16th time. It previously launched ispace’s HAKUTO-R lunar lander, SpaceX’s 27th Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-27) mission and 10 Starlink missions.

A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1073 touched down on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This will be the 76th landing on ASOG and the 327th booster landing to date.

While the last launch of B1073 was the Starlink 6-58 mission on May 13, 2024, its last launch attempt was on June 14 when it attempted to launch the Starlink 10-2 mission. It was stymied over the course of three launch attempts in as many days, culminating in an abort as the Merlin engines began firing prior to liftoff.

The following day, Kiko Dontchev, the SpaceX vice president of launch, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the booster experienced “a real issue,” which required them “to go inspect the hardware in detail.” He also noted that the problem created the first week without a Falcon launch “in a long time.”

Here are moments leading up to engine ignition and the ultimate abort of the Starlink 10-2 at the moment of T-0.

Watch: pic.twitter.com/a8wVmKFr9x

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) June 14, 2024

That quiet stretch ended up lasting from June 8 to June 18 when SpaceX launched the Starlink 9-1 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, marking the first successive SpaceX launches from Vandenberg without a flight from Florida in the middle.

Despite the setback, SpaceX still launched 10 Falcon rockets in June, including the Falcon Heavy which carried the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES-U satellite on June 25.

“We only launched 10 times in June, but Q2 as a whole saw 36 successful flights,” Dontchev wrote on X. “All of our goals are still very much within reach as long we keep safety and reliability first.”

SpaceX entered the year with the goal of hitting 144 launches or more by the end of the year. With June now in the rearview mirror, here’s where they currently stand for Falcon flights:

• January – 10
• February – 9
• March – 12
• April – 12
• May – 14
• June – 10

If SpaceX kept the same overall pace through the back end of the year, it would achieve 134 launches with its Falcon rockets (Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy).

We haven’t landed on Mars yet, but this picture makes it feel like we’re getting close

Our 67th and final launch of the month. We only launched 10 times in June, but Q2 as a whole saw 36 successful flights. All of our goals are still very much within reach as long we keep safety… https://t.co/XMZKxWTiZC

— Kiko Dontchev (@TurkeyBeaver) June 29, 2024

Starlink expansion

The Wednesday morning launch continued to bolster the ever expanding Starlink megaconstellation in low Earth orbit. The Starlink 8-9 mission will be the 49th dedicated mission launching these satellites in 2024 and the 111th launch over the V2 Mini version of Starlink to date.

Among the 20 satellites launching are 13 that feature the Direct to Cell capability. This launch will put the DTC Starlink total at 103. Following the last launch with DTC Starlink satellites onboard, Sara Spangelo, the senior director of SpaceX, expressed her excitement on X at reaching the 90-satellite mark.

“Thrilled with how quickly we’re deploying and how soon we will be able to serve customers with ubiquitous connectivity directly to their phones!” Spangelo wrote.

The Starlink division of the company also welcomed Madagascar to its internet coverage. Michael Nicolls, the vice president of Starlink engineering, said this was the 101st market for the satellite internet provider.

Starlink’s high-speed, low-latency internet is now available in Madagascar! → https://t.co/7eyKGH8SZu pic.twitter.com/AEm2Z26s5d

— Starlink (@Starlink) June 27, 2024

Update 12:05 a.m.: Liftoff occurred on time this evening.

Firefly Aerospace took more time before rescheduling its fifth Alpha rocket following a last minute ground systems issue Monday night. This will be Firefly’s first mission with NASA as the customer. When it launches, the two-stage, 29.48 meter (96.7-foot) tall rocket will send eight CubeSats from multiple universities and NASA centers to a sun-synchronous Earth orbit.

The company set the next launch attempt for 9:04 p.m. PDT (12:04 a.m. EDT / 0404 UTC) on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

On Monday, the mission countdown reached T-8 seconds when the first abort call came through. It was described as a “ground support issue.”

Launch teams made the call to recycle to T-19 minutes and aimed for the end of the 30-minute launch window at 9:33 p.m. PDT (12:33 a.m. EDT, 0433 UTC). However, once the countdown reached about T-10 minutes and 12 seconds, a second abort call was made and Firefly ultimately decided to scrub the launch attempt.

“The team has identified the solution and is working quickly to meet our next launch window on July 2nd,” Firefly wrote on social media.

The Alpha FLTA005 mission, also nicknamed “Noise of Summer,” is part of the $9.8 million Venture-Class Launch Services Demo 2 (VCLS Demo 2) contract awarded by NASA in December 2020. It along with Astra Space Inc. ($3.9 million) and Relativity Space Inc. ($3 million) were awarded firm fixed-price contracts to connect small satellites with newer rockets.

The idea, according to NASA is that these “small satellites can tolerate a higher level of risk than larger missions and will demonstrate – and help mitigate – risks associated with the use of new launch vehicles providing access to space for future small spacecraft and missions.” The contract is funded in part through the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in partnership with NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP).

Astra launched its VCLS Demo 2 mission in February 2022, which ended in failure shortly after stage separation. Meanwhile, Relativity ended its Terran 1 rocket program prior to launching its VCLS Demo 2 mission. Presumably, it will lobby to fly that mission using its forthcoming Terran R rocket, which is set to debut in 2026.

In May, NASA classified Firefly’s Alpha rocket as “Category 1” on a three-tier risk tolerance barometer. It defines this category as “High Risk – New, common rocket configuration with little or no prior demonstrated flight history.”

NASA refers to this flight as ELaNa 43 (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites 43) mission. The eight CubeSats onboard are part of the agency’s CubeSate launch Initiative (CSLI), which it describes as “an ongoing partnership between the agency, educational institutions, and nonprofits, providing a path to space for educational small satellite missions.”

Alpha FLTA005 is carrying the following payloads, which will be deployed to a sun-synchronous Earth orbit:

• CatSat – University of Arizona, Tucson
• KUbeSat-1 – University of Kansas, Lawrence
• MESAT-1 – University of Maine, Orono
• R5-S4, R5-S2-2.0 ­­­­­- NASA’s Johnson Space Center
• Serenity – Teachers in Space
• SOC-i – University of Washington, Seattle
• TechEdSat-11 (TES-11) – NASA’s Ames Research Center, California’s Silicon Valley

Their functions range from CatSat’s demonstration of a deployable antenna for high-speed communications to MESAT-1’s study of temperatures to “determine phytoplankton concentration in bodies of water to help predict algal blooms,” to the R5-S4 and R5-S2-2.0 satellites, which are looking at how to build leaner CubeSats.

“In the near term, R5 hopes to demonstrate new processes that allows for faster and cheaper development of high-performance CubeSats,” said Sam Pedrotty, R5 project manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a statement. “The cost and schedule improvements will allow R5 to provide higher-risk ride options to low-Technology Readiness Levels payloads so more can be demonstrated on-orbit.”

Alpha returns to flight

The last time an Alpha rocket launched was on Dec. 22, 2023, when it launched the “Fly the Lightning” mission on behalf of customer, Lockheed Martin. That mission ended in a partial failure when an issue with the upper stage caused the rocket to fall short of placing the satellite into its intended orbit.

In February, the company submitted its mishap investigation report to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which included both a mishap investigation team and an independent review team to determine the root cause of the issue. Firefly determined that it was an error within the guidance, navigation and control (GNC) software that didn’t correctly communicate with the upper stage’s reaction control system (RCS) thrusters.

“We’re proud of the combined team’s ability to work together to achieve this positive outcome,” said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, in a statement. “Looking ahead, the important long-term outcome is the rapid, thorough maturation of Alpha as the dependable one metric ton class rocket the market is demanding, which Firefly is dedicated to and is delivering.”

Lockheed Martin was not deterred by the partial mishap, as evidenced by its recent investment in Firefly’s Alpha rockets as a ticket to space. In early June, it signed a multi-launch deal with Firefly for 15 confirmed launches and up to 10 addition missions through 2029. The first launch on Alpha FLTA006 is set to launch later this year from Vandenberg.

“Our customers have told us they need rapid advancement of new mission capabilities,” said Bob Behnken, Director, Ignite Technology Acceleration at Lockheed Martin Space, in a statement. “This agreement with Firefly further diversifies our access to space, allowing us to continue quickly flight demonstrating the cutting-edge technology we are developing for them, as well as enabling our continued exploration of tactical and responsive space solutions.”

During a ribbon cutting ceremony marking key expansions at its manufacturing facilities in Cedar Park, Texas, in late February, Weber told the crowd that Alpha FLTA005 is the first of a handful of missions this year.

“We are launching the Alpha rocket four times this year with real missions that matter in the world that we operate in. Not test payloads or we’re going to try it and see what happens, real contracts with real customers, commercial and government,” Weber said. “And then, we’re gonna come back next year and do it six to eight times again and then on we go.”

During that presentation, Weber said that Alpha FLTA007 will be the first launch of their Elytra orbital vehicle “in the September/early October timeframe.” The payloads that will attach to that spacecraft have not been announced.

Introducing Elytra: Our line of highly mobile and scalable orbital vehicles. Formerly known as our Space Utility Vehicle, Elytra offers more robust on-orbit solutions, including mobility, hosting, delivery, and servicing across cislunar space and beyond. pic.twitter.com/bjJw969yBB

— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) August 8, 2023

Firefly also announced that it secured launch space in both Virginia and Sweden within the past month. It said Pad-0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island, Virginia, will be ready to support both the Alpha rocket as well as the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) (in partnership with Northrop Grumman) in early 2025. It took over the space formerly used by Northrop Grumman’s Antares 220+ rocket.

A partnership with the Swedish Space Company (SSC) will allow it to begin launching from the new spaceport at Estrange Space Center in Sweden beginning in 2026.

“We’re pleased to announce this historic collaboration that will have a huge impact on the global launch market, not least in Europe and the U.S.,” said Charlotta Sund, CEO at SSC, in a statement. “Reducing the current gap of orbital launch sites in Europe, this collaboration strengthens the transatlantic link between Sweden and the U.S. whilst offering unique space capabilities for the Swedish NATO membership. We’re looking forward to releasing this competitive and well-proven launch service at Esrange in northern Europe.”

Firefly signed an agreement in 2019 to use SLC-20 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and announced plans to standup an Alpha manufacturing facility at Exploration Park, near the gates to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. However, the company stated that it is primarily focusing on Wallops for its East Coast launch position for now.

“With Firefly conducting all its Alpha missions in a rapid cadence for its customers, it is prioritizing operations on Wallops Island while maintaining its relationship at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Wallops also answers the market demand for diverse launch locations and easing launch schedule constraints on the East Coast,” Firefly said to Spaceflight Now in a statement.

“This path allows Firefly to leverage existing infrastructure on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, including the vehicle and payload processing facilities, to rapidly meet the needs of its customers. Along with the resiliency to launch schedules, Wallops Island also enables operational efficiencies across vehicle lines since Firefly’s Medium Launch Vehicle will launch from the same pad.”

During a factory tour in February 2024, Adam Oakes, Firefly’s vice president of launch vehicles, said being able to launch from Wallops will be a big asset, especially when it comes to the launch of the MLV, which will take over launching the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station.

“I think the government is looking for resilient access to space and Florida’s one hurricane away from being delayed some amount of time,” Oakes said. “So flying from Wallops is a unique differentiator, I’ll say, for that vehicle. It’s very cost-competitive compared to the current Falcon 9 system and Dragon and actually, delivers more cargo than what the Falcon 9 cargo system will deliver. So, we’re pretty excited about that.”

SpaceX launched a national security mission on behalf of the United States’ National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) from Vandenberg Space Force Base Friday night. The spy agency described the classified mission as “the second launch of NRO’s proliferated architecture, delivering critical space-based ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) to the nation.”

The Falcon 9 rocket supporting this mission lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at the opening of a two-hour window, 8:14 p.m. PDT (11:14 p.m. EDT, 0314 UTC).

The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1081 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for an eighth time. Its previous missions included the launches of the Crew-7 astronaut mission to the International Space Station, two climate monitoring satellites (NASA’s PACE and the European Space Agency’s EarthCARE) and two Starlink flights.

A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1081 landed on the droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ This was the 95th booster landing for OCISLY and the 326th booster landing to date.

Proliferated architecture grows

This mission was the second launch of the NRO’s so-called “proliferated architecture,” following the launch of the NROL-146 mission in May. Reporting from Reuters earlier this year suggested that these satellites are based on the SpaceX-built Starshield satellite bus in partnership with Northrop Grumman.

In a statement to Spaceflight Now, the NRO said:

“NRO systems are designed, built and operated by the NRO. As a matter of national security we do not discuss the companies associated with the building of our systems, our contractual relationships with them, their specific activities, or the locations where NRO systems are built.”

The agency also declined to confirm how many satellites are on these missions as well as their orbit. In a speech before this year’s Space Symposium in Colorado, Dr. Troy Meink, the principal deputy director of the NRO, said there would be “approximately half a dozen of these launches” this year.

These mission were not procured as part of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 task order. That’s because the NRO needed these missions to move forward prior to the Phase 3 task order missions being assigned.

“The NRO is partnered with USSF Space Systems Command’s Assured Access to Space Team in the acquisition of Phase 3 and influenced the development of Phase 3, Lane 1 – as a means of procuring flexible launch solutions with tailorable mission assurance,” an NRO spokesperson said in a statement. ” When considering our launch cadence and need for tailorable mission assurance, the NRO recognized that we needed a bridge between Phase 2 to Phase 3 – Lane 1. This resulted in some missions being procured outside of NSSL. NSSL has, and will continue to be, the NRO’s principal mechanism to procure launch services.”

The return to Earth of Boeing’s Starliner capsule is on indefinite hold pending results of new thruster tests and ongoing analysis of helium leaks that cropped up during the ship’s rendezvous with the International Space Station, NASA announced Friday.

But agency officials insisted Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams are not “stranded” in space.

“We don’t have a targeted (landing) date today,” Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, told reporters during a teleconference. “We’re not going to target a specific date until we get that testing completed.

“So essentially, it’s complete the testing, complete the fault tree, bring that analysis into (the mission management team) and then have an agency-level review. And then we’ll lay out the rest of the plan from undock to landing. I think we’re on a good path.”

The problem for NASA and Boeing is that the Starliner’s service module, which houses the helium lines, thrusters and other critical systems, is discarded before re-entry and burns up in the atmosphere. Engineers will not be able to study the hardware after the fact and as a result, they want to collect as much data as possible before Wilmore and Williams head home.

But the crew’s repeatedly extended stay at the space station has prompted some observers to say Wilmore and Williams are stranded in orbit, an impression that seems to have taken root in the absence of updates from NASA as the target landing date was repeatedly pushed back.

Stich and Mark Nappi, Boeing’s Starliner program manager, said that description is a mis-characterization.

“It’s pretty painful to read the things that are out there” Nappi said. “We’ve gotten a really good test flight … and it’s being viewed rather negatively. We’re not stuck on ISS. The crew is not in any danger, and there’s no increased risk when we decide to bring Suni and Butch back to Earth.”

Said Stich: “I want to make it very clear that Butch and Suni are not stranded in space. Our plan is to continue to return them on Starliner and return them home at the right time.

“We’ll have a little bit more work to do to get there for the final return, but they’re safe on space station. Their spacecraft is working well, and they’re enjoying their time on the space station.”

The Starliner was launched June 5 on the program’s first piloted test flight with one already known helium leak. The other four developed during the ship’s rendezvous with the space station when the jets were rapidly pulsed to fine tune the Starliner’s approach.

While docked at the station, valves are closed to isolate the helium system, eliminating any additional leakage. But once Wilmore and Williams depart and head for home, the valves will be re-opened to repressurize the lines, or manifolds.

Stich said even with the known leaks, the spacecraft will have 10 times the amount of helium it needs to get home. But engineers want to make sure the leaks won’t get worse once the system is again pressurized.

The five aft-facing thrusters in the Starliner’s service module also failed to operate properly during approach to the space station on June 6.

After docking, four of the five jets were successfully test fired and despite slightly lower power levels than expected, they are considered good to go for undocking and re-entry. The fifth thruster was not “hot fired” because it’s earlier performance indicated it had actually failed.

But managers want to find out what caused the unexpected behavior in the other four. Starting next week, a new thruster identical to the ones aboard the Starliner will be test fired at a government facility at White Sands, N.M., exactly like the those in orbit were fired during the Starliner’s rendezvous and docking.

“We’ll recreate that profile,” Stich said. “Then we’ll put a pretty aggressive profile in the thruster for (the undocking-to-re-entry) phase.

It’s possible the glitches with the aft-facing thrusters were caused by higher-than-normal temperatures due to the Starliner’s orientation with respect to the sun, or the sequence of rapid, repetitive firings commanded by the flight software. Or both.

The ground tests, expected to last “a couple of weeks,” may provide evidence one way or the other.

“This will be a real opportunity to examine a thruster just like we’ve had in space on the ground, a detailed inspection,” Stich said. “Once that testing is done, then we’ll look at the plan for landing.”

As for the impression the crew is stranded in space, Stich and Nappi both pointed out that on Wednesday, a defunct Russian satellite in a slightly lower, more tilted orbit than the space station suffered a catastrophic “event” that produced more than 100 pieces of trackable debris.

While flight controllers evaluated the trajectories of the wreckage, the space station’s nine-member crew was told to “shelter in place” aboard their respective spacecraft, ready to immediately depart and return to Earth in case of a damaging impact.

Two Russian cosmonauts and NASA’s Tracy Dyson boarded their Soyuz ferry ship while three NASA astronauts and another cosmonaut floated into their SpaceX Crew Dragon. Wilmore and Williams rode out safe haven inside the Starliner and were cleared to fly home if warranted.

After about one hour, the crew was given the all clear to return to normal work. Had the Starliner had been considered unsafe, Wilmore and Williams likely would have been told to seek refuge in the Crew Dragon. But that was not the case.

“We have an approval to be a lifeboat in case of an emergency on ISS,” Nappi said. “That means we can return with the Starliner at any time, and that was proven this week.”

Update 8:00 a.m. EDT: SpaceX launched the Starlink 10-3 mission.

SpaceX is marking two key records with the launch of its latest batch of Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Starlink 10-3 mission was SpaceX’s 350th Falcon 9 rocket launch.

The first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1062 in the SpaceX fleet, also launched for a 22nd time, making it the flight leader among the Falcon fleet. Liftoff of the mission happened at 7:14 a.m. EDT (1114 UTC).

Among its previous 21 launches, B1062 launched two GPS satellites, two crews of astronauts (Inspiration4 and Ax-1) and 14 Starlink missions.

A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1062 will land on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ If successful, this will be the 85th landing on JRTI and the 325th booster landing to date.

The launch of 23 more Starlink satellites comes just two days after SpaceX launched the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) GOES-U weather satellite. The mission launched on the company’s tenth Falcon Heavy rocket.

SpaceX was also just announced as at the recipient of a contract valued at up to $843 million to “develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle that will provide the capability to deorbit the space station and ensure avoidance of risk to populated areas.”

“Selecting a U.S. Deorbit Vehicle for the International Space Station will help NASA and its international partners ensure a safe and responsible transition in low Earth orbit at the end of station operations. This decision also supports NASA’s plans for future commercial destinations and allows for the continued use of space near Earth,” said Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in a statement. “The orbital laboratory remains a blueprint for science, exploration, and partnerships in space for the benefit of all.”

The orbiting outpost has a planned operational end of life date of 2030 as new commercial space stations come online. NASA stated that the launch contract for this mission will be awarded at a later date.

Update 10:10 p.m. EDT: SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy second stage completed its third burn and deployment of the GOES-U satellite.

The finale in a series of critical weather satellites for the United States surmounted some weather challenges as it began its journey to join its three fellow satellites on orbit. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-U (GOES-U) satellite is designed to provide critical weather, climate and solar data to meteorologists and other parties to enhance the safety of people and property.

The spacecraft, managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), was launched to a geosynchronous transfer orbit onboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Launch of this fourth and final satellite for the GOES-R series happened at 5:26 p.m. EDT (2126 UTC). As of 6:12 p.m. EDT (2212 UTC), the upper stage of the rocket was in a coast phase with the GOES-U satellite attached to the payload adaptor.

During a prelaunch press conference, Brian Cizek, a launch weather officer with the 45th Weather Squadron, noted that there was only a 30 percent chance of favorable weather during the two-hour launch window. That improved to about 50 percent in the early part of the countdown and then 70 percent in time for launch.

The main weather concerns heading into the launch were the cumulus cloud rule, the anvil cloud rule and the surface electric fields rule.

“We evaluate a set of ten lighting launch commit criteria that are designed to protect not just against natural lightning, but rocket-triggered lightning,” Cizek said. “The rocket can actually trigger its own lightning strike if it flies through or near a cloud that could hold a charge by increasing the electric field in the atmosphere by up to 100 times. So, that’s what these rules are designed to protect against.”

A pair of sonic booms shook Florida’s Space Coast as SpaceX recovered the two side boosters on the three-core Falcon Heavy rocket, tail numbers B1072 and B1086. They touched down at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) and Landing Zone 2 (LZ-2) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station a little more than eight minutes after liftoff. The core booster, B1087, was expended following separation with the rocket’s upper stage.

All three of boosters being used on this mission were brand new.

“With reusability, we’re reusing our vehicles, but we also need to replenish the fleet. And the decision that we made in coordination with the NASA Launch Services Program (LSP)was that it makes sense for us to replenish the fleet now with these new boosters,” said Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX’s director of NASA Science Missions, during a prelaunch press conference on Monday.

This tenth flight of a Falcon Heavy rocket was also the first time that a GOES-R series satellite launches on this vehicle. Denton Gibson, the NASA LSP launch director, told Spaceflight Now in an interview ahead of launch that he and his office worked with NOAA to help them adjust to a launch aboard a SpaceX rocket.

“It’s just a matter of our team helping them get familiar with this particular vehicle, how they operate, the culture, the things they need to be aware of that they may not have had to worry about on a previous mission and so on,” Gibson said. “So, it’s just a matter of our team getting them up to speed on this particular launch vehicle, which to this point has gone smoothly so far.”

Pam Calderwood, the deputy program manager of GOES-U for Lockheed Martin (the prime contractor) said during the design and construction of this satellite, they had to make some modifications to support a horizontal integration with the launch vehicle as opposed to the vertical integration used on previous Atlas 5 launches with United Launch Alliance (ULA).

“The tipping of the spacecraft, all of the mechanical, specialized equipment to do that, a lot of it had to be updated, redesigned,” Calderwood said. “And then, we had to also take a look at all of the support structure to make sure that when you have some thing that’s basically in the 11,000-pound range that you’re trying to sit on its side, to make sure that there’s the proper supports needed.”

Following spacecraft separation about 4.5 hours after liftoff, the next big milestone for the spacecraft will be the deployment of four out of five of its solar array panels, which will allow it to start charging its batteries.

“The reason that’s so important is this spacecraft needs power to survive, if there’s any issues. And so, it’s very important to make sure that we have a really good solar array deployment,” Calderwood said.

About two days after launch, they will begin the liquid apogee engine burns to raise the apogee to a geosynchronous Earth orbit. That will be done with five separate burns over a 14-day period with the last burn coming at about July 8.

Over the next several months, the spacecraft will go through operational checkouts and calibrations, before it finally arrives at its final orbital position and will be renamed GOES-19. It will function as the primary “GOES East” satellite and will work alongside GOES-18, which is the primary satellite for “GOES West.”

We’ve been getting #ReadytoGOES all month-long!

Take a peek at what our Road to Launch has looked like since #GOESU landed in Florida, and stay tuned for launch coverage today!https://t.co/xaeDRxTWgm pic.twitter.com/QuOVBXDXJy

— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) June 25, 2024

Improving the forecast

Built by prime contractor Lockheed Martin, the GOES-U satellite is designed to further enhance the ability to track and predict weather conditions, both on the Earth as well as in space. Unlike the previous three spacecraft in the GOES-R series, GOES-U includes an instrument called the Compact Coronograph-1 (CCOR-1), which was developed by the Naval Research Laboratory.

Calderwood said it was a somewhat last-minute addition from NASA, but it will provide NOAA the ability to study the Sun’s corona with much greater frequency. It’s something that, on Earth, is only truly observable during a total solar eclipse.

“The Sun, when it goes through and it has these types of geomagnetic storms or these eruptions, it can go through and create communication blackouts. It can create disruptions to power grids. I know there’s also errors in the GPS systems that can happen,” Calderwood said. “And really, what’s important is to also make sure that we’re keeping our astronauts safe. So, we’re really cognizant of the exposure, the added exposure to radiation.

“And we’re all really excited to have this new piece of equipment on there that’s going to go through and help with that early warning detection.”

.@NOAA‘s new #GOESU satellite will not just help us study weather on Earth, but also potentially harmful #SpaceWeather with the help of a BRAND NEW instrument—the compact coronagraph-1 (#CCOR1)!

More: https://t.co/uDP44QfpWg

Get #ReadyToGOES tomorrow!#CountdownToLaunch pic.twitter.com/PHKqs3iZim

— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) June 24, 2024

The goal of CCOR-1 is to provide advanced warnings of between one and four days to allow preparations to take place to account for heightened solar activity. That work will be bolstered by GOES-U’s Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) and the Extreme Ultraviolet and X-ray Irradiance Sensors (EXIS), which “provide imaging of the sun and detection of solar flares,” according to NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS).

In addition, GOES-U includes two primary, Earth-facing instruments, the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM), built by Lockheed Martin; and the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), which was built by L3Harris.

The ABI scans the Earth every 10 minutes across 16 color bands, which range from the visible to the infrared spectrum. Chris Reith, L3Harris’ program manger for the ABI, said one of the most serendipitous parts of having the recent iterations of ABI has been its ability to detect fires.

“It can pick up a fire as small as a small barn fire from 22,000 miles above Earth,” Reith said. “So, that’s really one of the most amazing things, especially with all the wildfires we’ve seen in the western United States. It’s getting a lot of use in that way.”

The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (#GLM) onboard @NOAA‘s #GOESU will collect data on #lightning activity to help recognize intensifying thunderstorms and tropical cyclones.

More:https://t.co/tqZoG8QRrO

Get #ReadyToGOES tomorrow!#CountdownToLaunch pic.twitter.com/GwgYuvOH9g

— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) June 24, 2024

Looking to the future

All of the learning from the GOES-R series of satellites will roll over into the next generation of weather satellites: NOAA’s Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO). In mid-June, Lockheed Martin was awarded a $2.27 billion cost-plus-award-fee contract to design and build the trio of spacecraft, which need to have a minimum 10-year on-orbit operational life plus five year in on-orbit storage.

BAE Systems was also tapped in late May to develop and build the GeoXO Ocean Color instrument (OCX), which “will monitor U.S. coastal waters, the exclusive economic zone, and the Great Lakes,” according to NASA.

Reith said they are also working on improvements to the ABI for the GeoXO constellation.

“The majority of the subsystems that we use on the ABI are being reused on GXI or GeoXO Imager. So, there’ll be two spectral bands that will be added for low-level water vapor and then, there are seven of the older bands, the previous bands that will get increased resolution,” Reith said. “So, most importantly, in the visible bands, we’re going down to 250-meter resolution, which is going to really enhance and sharpen the pictures of the weather that we’re seeing and the cloud formation and the oceans and everything else that the ABI observes.”

The first of the GeoXO satellites is targeting launch in 2032. NOAA has been working with Congress to appropriate the funds to support the endeavor. During a press briefing on Monday, Pam Sullivan, the director of the GOES-R program for NOAA, said they have been appropriated about $500 million towards a program that will cost about $20 billion over a 30-year timespan.

Calderwood told Spaceflight Now that the team at Lockheed Martin said they’re not wasting any time getting started on the first satellite.

“It’s a very aggressive timeframe and so, we do indeed need to hit the ground running. What’s key with that new GeoXO is that we’re basing it. Unlike GOES, which was off of the A2100 bus, we’re going to be using it off of the new LM 2100 and so, that has a lot of improvements in it,” Calderwood said.

She described the updates from the GOES-R series to the GeoXO as going from a car designed and built in the 80s or 90s to one designed and built today. That will include a component that allows the satellite managers wot update the software on the satellite periodically, like a phone.

“It’s providing a whole new capability of a brand new software suite and truly, it’s something that we’re working through,” Calderwood said. “We’re pulling in from key components within Lockheed and then of course, we’re also baselining it off of all the experiences that we’ve had with the GOES-R series.”

SpaceX completed another double launch day with a West Coast launch of 20 Starlink V2 Mini satellites, including 13 featuring Direct to Cell capabilities.

Liftoff of the Starlink 9-2 mission happened at 8:47 p.m. PDT (11:47 p.m. EDT, 0347 UTC). It came following the launch of 22 Starlink satellites from Florida at 1:15 p.m. EDT (1715 UTC) on Sunday.

The first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1075 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for an 11th time. It previously supported the launches of the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Tranche 0 demonstration satellite mission, German military reconnaissance satellites SARah 2 & 3 and eight Starlink flights.

The last time this booster was flown was nearly 100 days ago on the Starlink 7-16 mission on March 19.

A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1075 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘Of Course I Still Love You.’ This will be the 94th landing on OCISLY and the 322nd booster landing to date.

The mission comes as SpaceX and NASA are preparing to launch a Falcon Heavy rocket on the GOES-U mission, the final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R (GOES-R) series. Rollout of the rocket to the launchpad at Launch Complex 39A was delayed from Sunday morning.

Teams are keeping a close eye on weather conditions for both rollout and launch operations. The mission is currently targeting liftoff on Tuesday, June 25, at 5:16 p.m. EDT (2116 UTC).

As of the latest weather forecast issued on Sunday, June 23, there is only a 30 percent chance of favorable weather at liftoff on both the primary launch day and the 24-hour backup, on June 26.

Watch Falcon Heavy pad views here:

SpaceX completed the launch of its first Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in more than two weeks on Saturday. The last time the company attempted to launch the Starlink 10-2 mission, it encountered a rare scrub as the Falcon 9’s first stage Merlin engines began firing.

Liftoff of the rescheduled flight happened at 1:15 p.m. EDT (1715 UTC), the opening of a nearly four-hour window, from Space Launch Complex 40. The mission also marked the first time SpaceX launched one of its payload fairings for a 20th time.

Activity in the tropics creates some uncertainty for the launch from a meteorological perspective, but proved to not be prohibiting to launch. On Saturday, June 22, the 45th Weather Squadron issued a launch weather forecast that suggests just 50 percent odds of favorable launch weather at the opening of the launch window.

Heading into the start of fueling, SpaceX stated on X (formerly Twitter) that the weather improved to 70 percent favorable for launch.

“Deep tropical moisture will remain entrenched across the Florida peninsula into early next week, and as a result, scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms can be expected each day, largely favoring the afternoon and evening hours,” the forecast stated.

“While atmospheric flow will remain weak enough to allow daily seabreeze development, an incoming trough will likely result in delayed formation and westward progression by Monday and Tuesday, with initial storm development closer to the coast on those days.”

The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, B1078, launched for an 11th time. It previously launched the astronauts and cosmonaut of the Crew-6 mission, the USSF-124 mission and seven previous Starlink flights.

Fairing separation confirmed. Today’s mission marks our first 20th flight of a fairing half! pic.twitter.com/dV7zZEhwU4

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 23, 2024

A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, B1078 landed on the SpaceX droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This was the 75th booster landing for ASOG and the 321st booster landing to date.

However, B1078 wasn’t always the intended booster for this mission though. The original flight plan had B1073 as the first stage booster. However, the booster was swapped out following a last-second scrub on June 14.

SpaceX hasn’t elaborated on the issue or issues that caused the scrub during engine ignition, but in a June 15 post on X (formerly Twitter), Kiko Dontchev, the vice president of Launch at SpaceX said: “Tough week dealing with production challenges and then a rare scrub at engine startup yesterday on 10-2. “Unfortunately there is a real issue so we need to go inspect the hardware in detail on this vehicle… Painful, but safety and reliability are the priority.”

Here are moments leading up to engine ignition and the ultimate abort of the Starlink 10-2 at the moment of T-0.

Watch: pic.twitter.com/a8wVmKFr9x

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) June 14, 2024

This was the 45th launch of Starlink satellites so far in 2024 with another planned for Sunday evening, which is set to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:45 p.m. PDT (11:45 p.m. EDT, 0345 UTC).

Starlink 10-2 added another 22 satellites to the growing megaconstellation. With this launch, SpaceX has launched 1,007 Starlink satellites this year alone.

According to expert orbital tracker and astronomer, Jonathan McDowell, there are more than 6,000 active Starlink satellites on orbit.

Falcon Heavy prepares to fly again

While SpaceX is preparing to launch a pair of Falcon 9 rockets on both sides of the country, in Florida, it’s also working with NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to launch a new weather satellite on June 25 at 5:16 p.m. EDT (2116 UTC).

NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) contracted SpaceX to launch the final satellite in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R (GOES-R) series. NOAA describes these as “the Western Hemisphere’s most sophisticated weather-observing and environmental-monitoring system.”

In an interview with Spaceflight Now on Friday NASA’s launch director, Dr. Denton Gibson, said the launch team will be monitoring the weather over the next few days.

“We have some planning to do or decisions to make in terms of when we roll the vehicle out and before we do all of our final preps for launch,” Gibson said.

NASA and SpaceX are preparing to launch a Falcon Heavy rocket in support of the NASA/NOAA GOES-U weather satellite mission. On Friday, we spoke with Dr. Denton Gibson, the @NASA_LSP Launch Director about what he and his team will be doing between now and the planned launch day on… pic.twitter.com/RCVV2ecFHi

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) June 22, 2024

He said they would make a determination on whether a rollout of the Falcon Heavy rocket from the hangar to the pad would make more sense on Sunday or Monday.

The Falcon Heavy has a backup launch date of June 26, but if it slips beyond that, Gibson said there would need to be discussions with the Eastern Range before a new date could be booked.

Watch live views of the Falcon Heavy launch pad.

NASA and Boeing managers have again decided to extend the Starliner crew capsule’s stay at the International Space Station, passing up a June 26 re-entry to allow more time for analysis and testing to make sure helium leaks and thruster failures are fully understood, officials said late Friday.

NASA plans to hold a formal re-entry readiness review before setting a new landing target date. Given the on-going analysis, the Starliner’s undocking and return to Earth likely will slip past two already planned space station spacewalks on Monday and July 2.

In the meantime, Starliner commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore and co-pilot Sunita Williams are still cleared to undock and fly home at any time if a station malfunction or other issue crops up that requires a quick departure. As such, officials say they are not stranded in space.

“We are taking our time and following our standard mission management team process,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. “We are letting the data drive our decision making relative to managing the small helium system leaks and thruster performance we observed during rendezvous and docking.”

In addition, he said, given the extended duration of the Starliner mission “it is appropriate for us to complete an agency-level review, similar to what was done ahead of the NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 return after two months on orbit, to document the agency’s formal acceptance on proceeding as planned.”

He was referring to the first flight of astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon ferry ship in 2020. But the Demo-2 mission did not experience problems like the ones noted so far in the Starliner’s first piloted test flight.

The issue for Starliner troubleshooters is that the helium leakage and the thrusters in question are located in the Starliner’s drum-shaped service module, which is attached to the base of the crew capsule. The service module is jettisoned prior to re-entry and burns up in the atmosphere.

Given that engineers will not be able to examine the actual hardware after the fact, NASA and Boeing managers want to give them as much time as possible to review telemetry, to continue testing and to polish contingency scenarios in case additional problems show up after undocking.

They also want to learn as much as possible about what might be needed to prevent similar problems in downstream flights. NASA managers were hoping to certify the Starliner for operational crew rotation flights to the ISS starting early next year, but it’s not yet clear if that’s remains a realistic goal.

In any case, Stich said the Starliner “is performing well in orbit while docked to the space station.”

“We are strategically using the extra time to clear a path for some critical station activities while completing readiness for Butch and Suni’s return on Starliner and gaining valuable insight into the system upgrades we will want to make for post-certification missions.”

Already running four years behind schedule, the Starliner was launched June 5, a month later than planned due to minor problems with its Atlas 5 rocket, trouble with a countdown computer and because of an initial helium leak in the system used to pressurize the capsule’s thrusters.

NASA and Boeing managers decided the leak was too small to pose a safety threat and the ship was cleared for launch. Once in orbit and on the way to the space station, however, four more helium leaks developed and the Starliner’s flight computer took seven maneuvering jets off line when the telemetry did not match pre-launch expectations.

One thruster was deemed unusable going forward, but the others were successfully test fired last Saturday. That “hot-fire” test gave engineers confidence the jets needed for post-undocking maneuvers and the critical de-orbit “burn” will work as needed to drop the ship out of orbit for re-entry.

Likewise, officials said they were confident the helium leaks could be managed even if one or more gets worse after undocking. Only seven hours of helium is needed for the return to Earth and the Starliner has more than 10 times that amount left on board.

Rocket Lab successfully reached a milestone that few commercial rockets achieved and at a pace that outperformed its competition. The company launched its 50th Electron rocket to date just seven years after the vehicle’s debut in May 2017.

The instantaneous liftoff from Launch Complex 1 at New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula happened at 6:13 a.m. NZST on Friday, June 21 (2:13 p.m. EDT, 1813 UTC on Thursday, June 20).

Onboard the rocket were five satellites on behalf of France-based internet of things company, Kinéis. This was the first of five dedicated flights for the company to deploy its full constellation, consisting of 25 satellites. All five on this flight were successfully deployed.

The satellites will orbit at an inclination of 98 degrees with the five satellites deploying “in a precise sequence in singles and as pairs to build out the constellation exactly as Kinéis needs it,” according to Rocket Lab.

The golden launch

The launch for Rocket Lab comes at a busy time for the business, which is pushing towards becoming an end-to-end space company. That includes multiple upcoming missions for U.S. agencies, like the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. Space Force as well as preparing for a planetary mission to Mars with Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket as the ride to space.

Prior to Electron’s 50th launch, Sir Peter Beck, the founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, said he and his team are immensely proud of reaching this milestone in the time that they did.

“Out of all the commercially developed rockets in the world, Electron reaching 50, we did it in the fastest amount of time. So, we scaled faster to 50 than anybody else, faster than the Falcon 9, faster than Pegasus, faster than anything else commercially,” Beck said. “And that’s a really hard thing to do because whether it’s a giant rocket or a little rocket, the scaling element is the same and it’s super, super hard.”

Beck said much of the Electron rockets flying today are quite similar to the rockets that kicked off their orbital launch business. He said in addition to their successes, they’ve also taken away a great deal from their failures as well.

“I prefer not to think about it because they’re such devastating moments. They’re incredibly painful. And yes, it’s true that after those moments, you build a better vehicle,” Beck said. “But I always remind the team to never, never be happy, because if you’re happy, the rocket gods will come down with a baseball bat and let you know who’s in charge.

“So, we’re always striving to improve the vehicle. Every opportunity we can to improve it or make it more reliable, we take. And it’s just the harsh reality of spaceflight: it’s incredibly difficult.”

He noted that they are continuing to book more and more Electron flights each year as they progress with the program and prepare to bring the larger and reusable Neutron rocket to market by mid-2025. But he said their pace of launch will continue to be driven by customer demand.

“Any CEO is going to say say that they want to see it scale vertically, right? The reality is, we scale with our customer demand. And the customer demand changes all the time, depending on geopolitical circumstances, where people are at in building their constellations and all the rest of it,” Beck said.

“What I will say is, this year, we sold more Electrons than we’ve ever sold before and next year is shaping up to be the same. So, we certainly hope that the scaling continues for the product, but it’s purely driven by market demand.”