Bangabandhu-1: First upgraded Falcon 9 rocket

Desk Report: SpaceX debuted a more reusable, higher-thrust model of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday, hauling Bangladesh’s first communications satellite into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast.

The successful launch propelled SpaceX closer to launching astronauts for NASA, which will fly on the same “Block 5” model of the Falcon 9 rocket that flew Friday.

Musk said the enhanced launch vehicle will also be easier to reuse, moving toward the California-based space transport company’s ambitious mission of drastically cutting launch costs and building settlements on other worlds.

The launcher’s window-rattling blastoff from Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A, the historic complex once used by NASA’s Saturn 5 moon rocket and numerous space shuttle missions, occurred at 4:14 p.m. EDT (2014 GMT) Friday.

Turning toward the east, the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket arced over the Atlantic Ocean with the Bangabandhu 1 communications satellite, a French-built spacecraft destined to provide television and data relay services for the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission.A launch try Thursday ended at T-minus 1 minute after computers on-board the Falcon 9 detected an out-of-bounds parameter. No such glitches appeared during Friday’s countdown.

In a feat once considered by many to be too daunting to attempt, the Falcon 9’s 15-story first stage booster made a pinpoint landing on SpaceX’s sea-going drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” parked nearly 400 miles (630 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral in the Atlantic Ocean.

After dropping away from the rocket’s upper stage two-and-a-half minutes into the mission, the booster pulsed thrusters fed by pressurized nitrogen gas to flip around to fly tail first, then reignited a subset of its nine engines to steer toward the recovery barge and slow down for landing.

Four titanium winglets extended from the top of the first stage to stabilize the cigar-shaped vehicle, and four landing legs unfurled at the bottom of the rocket just before touchdown.

The on-target landing was the 25th time SpaceX has retrieved one of its Falcon rocket boosters intact after a space launch. Fourteen of the landings have come on one of the company’s drone ships at sea, and SpaceX has returned 11 rockets to land for inspections or reuse.

Like all its launches, SpaceX’s chief objective on Friday’s mission was the deployment of the Bangabandhu 1 satellite in orbit. Two burns by the Falcon 9’s upper stage engine, a Merlin powerplant optimized for in-space maneuvers, guided the roughly 8,200-pound (nearl 3,750-kilogram) payload into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit for separation around 33 minutes after liftoff.

Named for Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the Bangladeshi nation who was assassinated in 1975, the spacecraft will provide telecom, television and other data services to Bangladesh and neighboring regions during a 15-year mission.

The satellite was built by Thales Alenia Space of Cannes, France, which also took charge of developing an operations center in Bangladesh, training Bangladeshi engineers, and arranging for the craft’s launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The guidance computer on-board the Falcon 9 aimed to release Bangabandhu 1 into an orbit ranging between 186 miles (300 kilometers) and 22,186 miles (35,706 kilometers) in altitude, tilted at an inclination of 19.3 degrees to the equator, according to Gilles Obadia, Thales’ program manager for the mission.

An official from Thales Alenia Space said after Friday’s launch that ground controllers in Cannes established contact with the Bangabandhu 1 satellite in orbit.

Source: Agencies



risingbd/May 14, 2018/Mukul