NASA and SpaceX’s launch of the Crew-9 mission took center stage this week. The launch of two new International Space Station crew members took place on Saturday from the recently crew-certified Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS).
Meanwhile, in California, another Falcon 9 lifted the only scheduled Starlink mission for this week from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) on Wednesday. In Asia, an H-IIA rocket has launched a government reconnaissance satellite from Japan, and China has launched a further three missions this week.
The frequency of SpaceX’s Starlink launches will be slightly curtailed for a few weeks. Both of SpaceX’s Florida launch pads are currently occupied by high-priority missions, with Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) being configured for Falcon Heavy’s forthcoming launch of Europa Clipper in October, and Crew-9 is flying from SLC-40.
CASC Jielong-3 | Multiple Payloads
Launched on Tuesday, Sep. 24, at 02:32 UTC aboard the sea launch vessel Dongfang Hangtiangang in Chinese coastal waters in the Yellow Sea, a Jielong-3 rocket lifted multiple Chinese payloads into Earth orbit.
Liftoff occurred at 02:32 UTC: pic.twitter.com/3pTy7bCNmp
— Cosmic Penguin (@Cosmic_Penguin) September 24, 2024
Jielong-3 (Smart Dragon 3) is a medium-sized, four-stage, solid-fueled rocket developed by the China Aerospace and Technology Corporation (CASC). The rocket features a large fairing 3.35 m in diameter at a total height of 31.9 m. This mission was the fourth sea-launched Jielong-3.
The rocket carried multiple payloads including Ganzhou-1, a C-band radar sensing satellite, to cover the northwest region of China. Massing at 285 kg, Ganzhou-1 will fly in a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 km. This is the first of an expected constellation of six satellites, which will provide global availability for imaging within 10 to 12 hours.
A second payload featured on this mission is the Jilin University No. 1 — an optical sensing satellite carrying newly developed meter-level sensing instruments developed by the University.
The eight payloads carried on this mission were: TianYi-41, XingShiDai-15/21/22, YuXing-2-05, Fudan-1, Tianyan-15, and JiTianXing-A01.
🚀 Liftoff at 23:33UTC on September 24, CAS-SPACE's Kinetica-1 Y4 launched 5 satellites from Jiuquan pic.twitter.com/28FT1PYVTq
— China 'N Asia Spaceflight 🚀𝕏 🛰️ (@CNSpaceflight) September 25, 2024
CASC Lijian-1 | Multiple Payloads
This mission, carrying five Chinese satellites, launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Tuesday, September 24, at approximately 23:35 UTC. It was flown by the Lijian-1, also known as Kinetica-1, a four-stage solid-fuelled rocket. This mission serves as the fourth flight of this rocket.
Amongst the payloads are remote sensing satellites, including AIRSAT-01 and 02 — the first satellites of the AIRSAT constellation being built and operated by China Science and Technology Satellite Group Co., Ltd. The main payload featured on these two satellites is a Ku-band synthetic aperture radar, with an imaging resolution better than one meter, which is mainly used for all-day and all-weather high-resolution microwave remote sensing imaging of Earth.
The mission claims that the flat-panel SAR satellite system aboard uses the unfolded cylindrical parabolic SAR antenna for the first time on any satellite, with onboard imaging processing capabilities.
SpaceX Falcon 9 | Starlink Group 9-8
With Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at VSFB being the only pad open for Starlink launches this week, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 on Tuesday, Sep. 24, at 9:01 PM PDT (Wednesday, Sep. 25, at 04:01 UTC). The mission – Starlink Group 9-8 – carried twenty v2-Mini Starlink satellites aboard, 13 of these being Direct-to-Cell capable.
LAUNCH (Foggy Vandy) – SpaceX Falcon 9 B1081-10 launches with Starlink Group 9-8 from SLC-4E.
Overview:https://t.co/rhQ2V7xS35
Live: https://t.co/Kt7aAjZ8KI pic.twitter.com/RFdBs0rIJ5
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) September 25, 2024
Falcon 9 flew on the regular southeasterly trajectory used by Starlink missions, and the booster — B1081 — landed successfully, approximately 600 km downrange on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.
B1081 was flying for the tenth time, having previously flown Crew-7, CRS-29, Starlink Group 6-34, PACE, Transporter 10, Starlink Group 8-1, EarthCARE, NROL-186, and Starlink 9-5. Its first flight was on Sep. 26, 2023.
The turnaround time for this booster between launches was only 25 days.
A Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA rocket has launched IGS-Radar 8, a Japanese government radar reconnaissance satellite, from pad LA-Y1 at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Delayed by unsuitable weather earlier in the month, liftoff occurred on Thursday, Sep. 26, at 05:24 UTC.
9月26日 14:24 H-IIAロケット49号機による情報収集衛星レーダ8号機の打上げ(1)。SRB-A点火～リフトオフ。打上げ時は曇が多くなってしまいましたが、午後の時間で逆光にならず、ロケットは良く写りました。 #H2AF49 pic.twitter.com/SfWcej2S51
— RZ Makise (@makkisse999) September 26, 2024
IGS-Radar 8 flew to a Sun-synchronous orbit and will operate for both national defense and civil natural disaster monitoring purposes for Japan. H-IIA is a two-stage rocket with two strap-on solid rocket motors. This mission will serve as the rocket’s 49th flight, with 42 consecutive successes to date. This was the second H-IIA flight this year. The H-11A model will be retired with the flight of the 50th and the last booster now being readied.
CASC Chang Zheng 2D | Shijian 19
A Chang Zheng (Long March) 2D launched from Site 9401 (SLS-2) at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China, on Friday, Sep.27, at 10:35 UTC carrying Shijian 19, a reusable satellite that provides for microgravity experiments to be undertaken, and the results to be returned to Earth.
Also it’s weird to see a pair of fairings used on this launch, as all previous Chinese recoverable satellites were launched exposed to the exterior: pic.twitter.com/ZhZctZ2whU
— Cosmic Penguin (@Cosmic_Penguin) September 27, 2024
The 2D variation of the booster is a two-stage vehicle used to launch payloads to low-Earth orbit or Sun-synchronous orbit.
This launch was the 180th orbital launch attempt this year.
Having been delayed from the original mid-August launch date while NASA waited for the outcome of Boeing’s Starliner issues, the Crew-9 mission launch on Saturday, Sept. 26, at 1:17 PM EDT (17:17 UTC). The additional two-day delay was due to Hurricane Helene’s impact around Florida, which threatened to further delay the launch, although conditions improved enough for SpaceX to “find a hole in the sky” as SpaceX called up to the crew shortly before launch.
Falcon 9 booster B1085 was on its second flight during this mission, having previously flown Starlink Group 10-5. SpaceX conducted a static fire with the booster at the launchpad early on Wednesday morning before the Hurricane struck the area.
Launching from SLC-40 at CCSFS, Crew-9 was the first use of SLC-40 for a crewed flight. SpaceX built the crew access arm and tower at the pad throughout 2023. The first use of the access arm was to late-load cargo aboard the CRS-30 Cargo Dragon in March, but the certification for its use for crewed launches was only recently completed.
Crew-9 is utilizing Crew Dragon C212 Freedom, which is flying on its fourth flight. Previous missions were Crew-4, Axiom Mission 2, and Axiom Mission 3. Freedom and its trunk — the service module, which is disposed of after each flight — arrived at the integration hanger at the pad on the Saturday before launch.
The booster performed a return-to-launch-site (RTLS) landing following launch —this booster’s first— and landed at Landing Zone-1, a few miles south of the launch pad at the Cape.
SpaceX confirmed a nominal orbital insertion on after the second stage completed its first burn.
Conditions clear enough to spot the meatball🔵 from the ground.
Liftoff of Falcon 9, Dragon Freedom, and the first humans to launch from SLC-40! #Crew9
📸 – @NASASpaceflight
📺 – https://t.co/4setu85xq8 pic.twitter.com/YgQPIujVjN
— Max Evans (@_mgde_) September 28, 2024
Dragon recovery vessel Megan left Port Canaveral on Saturday, heading for the Gulf of Mexico to abort recovery duties if required, but turned back to seek shelter in Port Everglades. Both Megan and Shannon have since sailed to support this mission.
This mission launched with only two crew members aboard, instead of the original four, to leave seats for the Starliner Crewed Flight Test (CFT) crew— Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — who will return home with Crew-9 next February. The Starliner crew remained aboard ISS following the decision to return their spacecraft uncrewed following safety concerns related to Starliner’s thrusters and helium leaks in its propulsion system.
Crew-9 is commanded by Tyler “Nick” Hague from NASA. Hague is accompanied by mission specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov from Roscosmos, who is flying on his first mission. Hague has logged 203 days in space from two missions aboard the ISS, as well as three spacewalks. The Crew-9 crew will become members of the Expedition 72 crew aboard the Station. They will join NASA astronauts Wilmore, Williams, and Don Pettit, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner in conducting scientific research and maintenance activities on ISS.
The two remaining Crew-9 astronauts — Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson — will be reassigned to a mission at a later date according to a NASA statement.
Following the separation of the Crew Dragon, the second stage was disposed of by de-orbiting, however, SpaceX has reported an anomaly that resulted in the stage landing off-target in the ocean.
After today’s successful launch of Crew-9, Falcon 9’s second stage was disposed in the ocean as planned, but experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn. As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area.
We will resume launching after we…
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 29, 2024
Consequently, the OneWeb #20 mission planned to launch from Vandenberg on Monday has been postponed to no earlier than Wednesday of next week.
The docking with ISS was achieved at 21:30 UTC on Sunday, Sept. 29.
(Lead Image: A previous launch of a Falcon 9 Starlink mission from Vandenberg. Credit: Pauline Acalin for NSF)