Launch Summary: Falcon Heavy returns with GOES-U, Firefly launches an Alpha – NASASpaceFlight.com

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After a week in which Tropical Storm Alberto caused delays to the launch schedule in Florida due to high seas, wind and rain, SpaceX hopes to get back on track this week, with launches planned from all three active Falcon launch pads, including a Falcon Heavy.

Towards the end of the week, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will attempt the third launch of the H3 rocket from its Japanese launch site Tanegashima. In addition, Firefly’s Alpha will return with its first mission of the year from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) in California.

Due to the reconfiguration of the launch pad for the Falcon Heavy launch from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX has been unable to schedule Falcon 9 launches from that launch pad since May 24. SpaceX will therefore seek to maximize its other East Coast launch pad, Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), at the neighboring Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

However, the bad weather may not be over for Florida. With hurricane season already underway and more tropical storms on the way, launch schedules are likely to be impacted. The weather is also impacting maritime resources as recovery vessels must navigate the storms, causing further disruption and delays.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 9-2

On Sunday, June 23, at 8:47 p.m. PDT (Monday, June 24, at 3:47 a.m. UTC), a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched from VSFB’s SLC-4E, carrying the second batch of Group 9 Starlink v2 mini satellites into orbit. The drone ship Of course I still love you supported the mission and was stationed approximately 600 km below. The booster landed on the drone ship after completing ascent, separation from the second stage, and a controlled return, using an entry burn to slow the descent rate and a landing burn to achieve a soft landing.

The mission launched on a southeasterly trajectory and delivered the payload of 20 satellites into a 53-degree orbit. Thirteen of the Starlinks have direct-to-cell capability, a groundbreaking feature that allows a cell phone to communicate directly with the satellite when no other service is available.

B1075, the booster for this mission, flew after a 97-day orbit, with this mission being its 11th flight. Previously, the booster flew Starlink Group 2-4, Transport and Tracking Tranche 01, Starlink Group 2-9, Starlink Group 5-7, Starlink Group 6-20, Starlink Group 7-3, Starlink Group 7-6, SARah 2 and 3, Starlink Group 7-12, Starlink Group 7-16, and USA 350 and 351.

The booster has flown all of its previous missions from Vandenberg and flew for the first time on January 19, 2023. It previously landed twice in Landing Zone 4 and eight times on Of course I still love you.

SpaceX Falcon Heavy |

The tenth flight of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, June 25 at 5:16 p.m. EDT (9:16 p.m. UTC). Launching from the historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, the Falcon Heavy will launch the GOES-U weather satellite into geostationary transfer orbit, flying due east to take full advantage of the Earth’s rotation for extra power.

Because the payload weighs over 5,000 kg, the Falcon Heavy’s central core, B1087, will be spent as it cannot store enough fuel to make a soft landing on a drone ship. The two side boosters, B1072 and B1086, will perform a return to launch site at landing zones 1 and 2. All three boosters are flying for the first time.

Ceres 1S | Unknown payload

Chinese company Galactic Energy will launch a four-stage Ceres 1S rocket on Thursday, June 26, at 05:30 UTC. The mission will be a sea launch from coastal waters near the Haiyang Spaceport. The mission’s payload is currently unknown. This will be the fourth Ceres 1 launch in 2024.

Firefly Alpha FLTA005 | ELaNa 43 “Noise of Summer”

Static fire on the Firefly FLTA005. (Source: Firefly Aerospace)

On Wednesday, June 26 at 9:03 p.m. PDT (Thursday, June 27 at 4:03 a.m. UTC), Firefly Aerospace’s two-stage Alpha rocket will make its first flight of 2024 from SLC-2W at VSFB, launching a series of Cubesats into orbit.

This mission is part of the Venture-Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 contract between NASA and Firefly. The eight satellites in the payload are mostly college-built cubesats, while three were built by NASA. Venture-Class is designed to give colleges and other small companies greater access to space. The college-built payloads are selected under NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI), which is designed to support such projects, and each flight is given a common mission name in the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) field. This flight forms ELaNa 43.

NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston operates two R5 satellites, S4 and S2 2.0. These small, free-flying devices are built from commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and are intended to test their suitability as low-cost in-orbit inspection devices.

NASA Ames Research Center also hosts a satellite, TechEdSat 11 (TES 11), the latest and largest version of NASA Ames’ Exo-Brake experiment, which uses a screen-like device to increase the drag of a spacecraft to safely deorbit it in a controlled reentry.

The remaining satellite payloads have small experimental elements developed by students. A novel experiment is on board CatSat, a 6u CubeSat built by the University of Arizona. CatSat will achieve a nearly sun-synchronous orbit and use this to remain in constant daylight. The CubeSat is expected to operate for about six months, providing high-resolution Earth imagery, measuring the ionosphere using amateur radio signal monitoring, and testing an inflatable antenna.

This launch livestream is hosted by Firefly in collaboration with NSF.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 10-3

Another batch of Starlink v2 mini satellites will be launched into orbit using a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster. The mission will launch from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:00 a.m. EDT (11:00 UTC) on Thursday, June 27.

During the flight to the northeast, the booster will burn for about 150 seconds before separating from the second stage, which will then fire its single Merlin vacuum engine to launch the payload into a 53-degree inclined orbit.

The booster will return to land on the autonomous drone ship Just read the instructions stationed about 600 km below the launch pad.

JAXA-H3-22S |

The third launch attempt for JAXA’s H3 rocket will take place on Sunday, June 30 at 03:06 UTC from the Yoshinobu launch complex at JAXA Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. The first H3 mission, which launched Daichi-3, failed due to a malfunction in the second stage.

This payload – the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4) – was built at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Kamakura plant and is named “Daichi 4”. The Japanese word “daichi” means wisdom of the earth and part of a growing family.

The booster for this mission is a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H3, designated 22S, indicating two LE-9 engines, two solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and a shorter payload fairing. It was reported that this mission was originally scheduled to fly with an H3-30, a three-engine first stage without SRBs. However, the H3-30 has been slightly delayed and has yet to complete engine and static fire tests. The previous flight showed that the H3-22 was powerful enough to lift this payload.

The previous launch of an H3-22. (Source: JAXA)

The LE-9 engines used in the first stage use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel and the expander bleed cycle method of engine cooling, in which the combustion chamber is cooled by cryogenic liquid fuel. The cooling process causes the fuel to change state and become a gas, which is then used to drive the turbine pumps, pumping more fuel and oxidizer into the engines. This is believed to be the first successful use of the expander bleed cycle in a dual-fuel engine.

The second stage has a single LE-5B engine that uses the same liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants as the first stage.

SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 8-9

Another batch of Starlink v2 mini satellites will launch from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral at 3:11 a.m. EDT (07:11 UTC) on Sunday, June 30. Early indications point to a northeasterly trajectory, with the supporting drone ship stationed 380 miles (618 km) downrange, where the booster will land after launch is complete.

The timing of this launch suggests another ambitious pad orbit time for SLC-40. The current pad orbit time record is two days, 19 hours, and 40 minutes, set just a few days ago by the Starlink Group 10-2 mission.

(Main image: Falcon Heavy on LC-39A. Image credit: Sawyer Rosenstein for NSF)

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