The second full week of August is another busy one, with five flights scheduled including the final certification flight of a new launch vehicle from India. The Falcon 9 and Soyuz rockets were also scheduled to fly this week with one mission to the International Space Station and a pair of non-Starlink flights from both coasts of the United States.
This week’s current launch schedule started on Thursday, Aug. 15. Progress MS-28 launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with cargo for the ISS. Later on Thursday, a Falcon 9 flew two Maxar imaging satellites from Florida. The Indian SSLV launched on Friday, with a Chinese Chang Zheng 4B and the Transporter-11 Falcon 9 mission from California scheduled for later that day.
The Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the earlier Progress MS-22 flight at Pad 31/6 in Kazahkstan ahead of liftoff. (Credit: RKK Energiya)
RKK Energiya Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-28
The third Progress flight of 2024 launched successfully on Thursday, Aug. 15, at 03:20 UTC. The mission, which flew from Site 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, is to fly to the International Space Station with around 2,400 kg of food, water, clothing, fuel, and equipment for the Expedition 71 crew.
Progress MS-28 has now docked with the Station on Saturday, Aug. 17, with docking at 05:53 UTC. MS-28 docked at the aft port on the Zvezda service module on the ISS Russian segment, taking the place of Progress MS-26 on the Station.
This flight is the fourth launch of the year for the Soyuz 2.1a and just the seventh launch of a Soyuz family rocket in 2024. Russia has also had one Angara launch this year, for a total of eight launches in 2024 after Progress MS-28’s launch.
The Maxar WorldView Legion 3 & 4 satellites before encapsulation in the Falcon 9’s fairing. (Credit: Maxar Technologies)
SpaceX Falcon 9 | WorldView Legion 3 & 4
Falcon 9 flew a non-Starlink mission from Florida this week, with the rocket lofting two WorldView Legion satellites into a mid-latitude low-Earth orbit from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch took place on Thursday, Aug. 15, at 9:00 AM EDT (13:00 UTC) at the start of a three-hour window closing at 12:00 PM EDT (16:00 UTC).
The Falcon 9, with B1076-16 as the first stage, took a northeast trajectory out of Florida before stage separation. While the second stage lifted the WorldView satellites into orbit, the first stage conducted a boostback burn and returned to the launch site, with a landing on the concrete pad at LZ-1. The two satellites were released from the second stage using a custom-built dispenser assembled by Maxar and optimized for their spacecraft.
B1076 started its career with the CRS-26 flight and has flown OneWeb #16, Intelsat 40e/TEMPO, O3b MPOWER 5 & 6, Ovzon-3, Eutelsat 36D, Turksat 6A, and eight Starlink missions. After launch the satellites were placed into separate orbits. Legion 3 ended up in a circular 450 km altitude orbit at 45 degrees inclination while Legion 4 is in a circular 700 km altitude orbit at the same inclination.
The flight path of the WorldView Legion 3 & 4 mission after launch. (Credit: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)
The WorldView Legion 3 & 4 satellites, totaling 1500 kg in mass, will join WorldView Legion 1 & 2 in orbit as part of the Maxar DigitalGlobe constellation of Earth observation satellites. These satellites are equipped with an optical imager capable of up to 30 cm class resolution in visible and infrared bands, and it is planned to fly six WorldView Legion satellites by the end of this year.
Once all six WorldView Legion satellites are in orbit, joining the four Maxar satellites that were in orbit before the Legion satellites started flying, Maxar will be able to collect more than six million square km of imagery daily. The company can also collect imagery of high-interest areas up to every 20 to 30 minutes and can collect images at various times of the day due to the combination of Sun-synchronous and mid-latitude orbiting spacecraft.
This flight was the 79th Falcon 9 flight of 2024, the 80th Falcon family flight of this year, and the seventh Falcon 9 flight of August. There were just six Falcon 9 flights in July due to the brief grounding after the July 11 Starlink 9-3 anomaly, but SpaceX is back to its usual flight cadence. This was also notably SpaceX’s 200th launch from the pad at SLC-40.
The launch of SSLV-D1, the first flight of the type. (Credit: ISRO)
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has flown the last certification mission of its new small satellite launcher. The Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) launched successfully on Friday, Aug. 16, at 03:47 UTC, at the beginning of a 60-minute window. The rocket lifted off from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota Island in the Bay of Bengal on India’s southeast coast.
The SSLV-D3 mission took the EOS-08 Earth observation satellite to a circular low-Earth orbit at 475 km altitude with a 37.4-degree inclination. The EOS-08 is a microsatellite that masses 175.5 kg and is equipped with three instruments. The spacecraft will use an electro-optical, infrared payload, a global navigation satellite system reflectometry payload, and a UV dosimeter, with a design mission life of one year.
Two views of the EOS-08 satellite to be carried to orbit aboard SSLV-D3. (Credit: ISRO)
The mission also carried the SR-0 DEMOSAT developed for SpaceKidz India, although the Space Rickshaw-0 and the IITMSAT had initially been mentioned as payloads. After the successful SSLV-D3 mission, the SSLV will be certified for operational missions by the Indian industry and the NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) organization. As part of an effort to encourage more private sector space activity, a new launch site for the SSLV is being built in the state of Tamil Nadu, at the southern tip of India.
The SSLV is a four-stage vehicle with three solid-fueled stages and a fourth stage known as a velocity trimming module. The fourth stage uses 16 hypergolic liquid-fueled thrusters to adjust the payload’s orbit before releasing it. The 34-meter-tall vehicle is capable of flying up to 500 kg to a low-Earth orbit or 300 kg to a Sun-synchronous polar orbit.
This flight is the first SSLV launch of 2024 and just the third overall flight of the year for ISRO. The first SSLV flight in 2022 failed, but the second SSLV development flight in 2023 succeeded. SSLV-D3 is the last flight in ISRO’s development program. with NSIL taking over future production and launch operations.
China launched a Long March 4B from Xichang today at 0735 UTC. Aboard were the Yaogan-43 (01) satellite group. These are exceptionally described as for carrying out "new technology experiments for low-orbit constellation." https://t.co/to3MykwFJI pic.twitter.com/AjhhaBbcbu
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) August 16, 2024
CASC Chang Zheng 4B | Yaogan 43 Group 01
A Chang Zheng 4B launched this week carrying a classified mission for the Chinese military with “new technology testing for low-Earth orbit constellation systems.” The launch took place at 07:35 UTC from LC-3 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China, at the midpoint of a 20-minute launch window.
NOTAMS have indicated the flight would take a path that would place the payload into a low-Earth orbit. The inclination would be somewhere around 29 to 35 degrees from the Equator. Guided tours for this launch did not take place due to “security concerns”.
A Falcon 9 stands at SLC-4E at the Vandenberg Space Force Base. (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)
SpaceX Falcon 9 | Transporter-11
SpaceX’s regular series of rideshare missions for small payloads continues with the Transporter-11 flight. Transporter-11 successfully launched from Space Launch Complex-4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) on Friday, August 16 at 11:56 AM PDT (18:56 UTC). The vehicle took a southward trajectory with the rideshare payloads being deployed into a Sun-synchronous orbit.
The booster for this flight is B1075-12, and the recovery method involves a successful landing at LZ-4 next to SLC-4E. For this mission, 116 payloads from multiple companies, space agencies, and countries were atop Falcon 9, deployed at altitudes ranging from 510 to 590 km. The payloads started deployment in the first of two sequences after the SES-2 second stage burn was successfully concluded. All payloads were deployed after two additional upper-stage engine burns.
These payloads will perform various tasks in orbit, ranging from carbon monitoring, weather observation, fisheries monitoring, Earth observation with radar and optical means, communications, propulsion demonstration, and other purposes.
The Arctic Weather Satellite before launch on the Transporter-11 mission. (Credit: ESA)
The European Space Agency’s Arctic Weather Satellite is on board this flight. The 120 kg microsatellite, built by OHB in Sweden, will take advantage of its Sun-synchronous orbit to monitor weather in the Arctic and improve forecasts for this region. This satellite is a prototype for a possible future constellation of satellites to improve weather forecasting in Earth’s polar regions and elsewhere on our planet.
Capella’s Acadia-5, a 160 kg microsatellite, will use synthetic aperture radar to observe Earth under all weather and lighting conditions. It joins Acadia-4 in a mid-latitude low-Earth orbit to help the company provide comprehensive coverage of the planet. These satellites also have optical inter-satellite links and increased bandwidth relative to previous Capella satellites.
The CAKRA-1 satellite for the Indonesian Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Affairs before launch on Transporter-11. (Credit: Exolaunch)
NASA has several payloads aboard this flight, and customers from countries such as Senegal, Poland, Finland, Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, Germany, Hungary, Spain, and Britain are also represented. Celestis also has a Harmony Flight payload onboard of cremated human remains as part of its “space funeral” service.
This flight was the 80th Falcon 9 launch of 2024 and the 81st Falcon family flight of the year. Transporter-11 was also the eighth Falcon 9 flight of August, matching last month’s total with more than half of the month to go. SpaceX has planned to fly up to 148 Falcon 9 flights this year, though reaching that goal may be in question now.
(Lead image: Progress MS-28 shown during vacuum chamber testing. Credit: Roscosmos)