1 week Ago By John Sharp
NASA and SpaceX’s launch of the Crew-9 mission will be center stage this week. The launch of two new International Space Station crew members is currently scheduled for Thursday 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 will lift the only scheduled Starlink mission for this week from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) on Wednesday.
In Asia, an H-IIA rocket is set to launch a government reconnaissance satellite from Japan, while China is preparing to launch 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 being prepared at SLC-40.
CASC Jielong-3 | Multiple Payloads Expected to launch on Tuesday, Sep. 24, at 02:30 UTC aboard the sea launch vessel Dongfang Htangtiangang in Chinese coastal waters in the Yellow Sea, a Jielong-3 rocket will launch multiple Chinese payloads into Earth orbit. Jielong-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 will be the fourth sea-launched Jielong-3. Previous Chinese sea launch. (Credit:CASC) The rocket will carry 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. CASC Lijian-1 | Multiple Payloads This mission, carrying five Chinese satellites, will launch from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Tuesday, September 24, at 23:35 UTC. It will be flown by the Lijian-1, also known as Kinetica-1, a four-stage solid-fuelled rocket.
This mission will serve 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 is targeting Tuesday, Sep.
24, at 8:59 PM PDT (Wednesday, Sep. 25, at 03:59 UTC) to launch the Starlink Group 9-8 mission. The precise number of Starlink satellites being launched is not yet known.
Falcon 9 is expected to fly on the regular southeasterly trajectory used by Starlink missions, and its currently unannounced booster will land approximately 600 km downrange on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You . An H-IIA 202 rocket lifts off from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. (Credit: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
/ JAXA) MHI H-IIA 202 | IGS-Radar 8 A Mitsubishi Heavy Industries H-IIA rocket will launch 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, the mission is now scheduled to liftoff on Thursday, Sep. 26, at 05:24 UTC.
IGS-Radar 8 will fly 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 will be the second H-IIA flight this year. SpaceX Falcon 9 | Crew-9 Delayed from the original mid-August launch date while NASA waited for the outcome of Boeing’s Starliner issues, Crew-9 is now scheduled to launch on Thursday, Sept. 26, at 2:05 PM EDT (18:05 UTC).
Falcon 9 booster B1085 will fly on its second flight during this mission, having previously flown Starlink Group 10-5. Dragon arrives at pad 40 in Florida ahead of next week's @NASA Crew-9 launch to the @Space_Station pic.twitter.
com/YEJwWPPnmp — SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 20, 2024 Launching from SLC-40 at CCSFS, Crew-9 will be 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 will utilize Crew Dragon C212 Freedom, which will be 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 will perform a return-to-launch-site (RTLS) landing following launch —this booster’s first— and land at Landing Zone-1, a few miles south of the launch pad at the Cape. Dragon recovery vessel Megan left Port Canaveral on Saturday, heading for the Gulf of Mexico for abort recovery duties if required. This mission will have 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. Falcon 9 B1085-2 for the Crew 9 mission is rolling at KSC ahead of launching two humans to the ISS. It will be launching from SLC-40, as SpaceX utilizes that pad's upgrades for Crew Dragon.
https://t.co/tANS0dWyIH pic.twitter.
com/zzapNARtAd — Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) September 16, 2024 Crew-9 is commanded by Tyler “Nick” Hague from NASA. Hague will be accompanied by mission specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov from Roscosmos, who will be 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.
This launch will be the 180th orbital launch attempt this year. CASC Chang Zheng 2D | Unknown Payload A Chang Zheng (Long March) 2D is expected to launch from Site 9401 (SLS-2) at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China, on Friday, Sep.27, at 10:35 UTC carrying an unknown payload.
There is very little information available regarding this mission at present. The 2D variation of the booster is a two-stage vehicle used to launch payloads to low-Earth orbit or Sun synchronous orbit. (Lead Image: A previous launch of a Falcon 9 Starlink mission from Vandenberg.
Credit: Pauline Acalin for NSF).
