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On Monday, December 3 at 18:31:47 UTC (1:31pm EST) or about 10 hours after the time this story goes live. With this launch, SpaceX would mark 3 milestones:
First, it will be the first time that one of their boosters will have flown 3 times. The first launch of this booster was on May 11 (from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida) and the second was on August 7 (from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station). This launch will be from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base near Lompoc, California. (Attentive readers will notice that this booster will have been launched from three different launch pads. Another first.)
Second, it will be the most satellites deployed in a single launch by a U.S. company: 64 (15 microsats and 49 cubesats). Note the qualification, though; India's ISRO launched 88 cubesats using their PSLV into a 500 km altitude SSO on Feb 15, 2017.
Third, this would be SpaceX's 19th launch of the year — its most ever.
This flight has been rescheduled from Dec 1 (for weather) and Dec 2 (to check out the second stage). The launch will be live-streamed on YouTube with coverage expected to begin approximately 15 minutes before launch.
Next up is an ISS resupply mission on December 4, scheduled at 18:38 UTC (1:38pm EST). This would be SpaceX's 20th flight of the year and is scheduled 24 hours and 7 minutes after the Dec 3 launch. This launch is from pad SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
But wait, there's more! On Dec 18th, SpaceX plans a GPS satellite launch on December 18 @ 14:24 UTC (9:24am EST) from the same pad (SLC-40) as was used on Dec 4 That would mark a two-week turnaround time for that launch pad.
And, to wrap up the year, SpaceX plans an Iridium Next launch on Dec 30 @ 16:38 UTC (11:38am EDT) from pad SLC-4E at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Should all these flights go off as planned, this would make for a very Happy New Year for SpaceX as it would mark 22 launches in a single year, just under 2 flights per month!
Sources: Ars Technica and SpaceflightNow.com.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 03 2018, @12:55PM (4 children)
I'm wondering if the stream will show all of the satellite deployments and include ~64 little notches on the timeline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#Future_2018_launches [wikipedia.org]
GPS launch:
Iridium:
It's possible that SpaceX launches will plateau or drop in 2019. But they could artificially raise the number with Starlink launches, which we would probably want to exclude from the total. The 2018 count includes the infamous Zuma launch and the Falcon Heavy demo.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday December 03 2018, @03:17PM (3 children)
Why wouldn't Starlink, the infamous Zuma, and Falcon Heavy launches count as launches?
Do those not require the same attention to detail, preparation, planning, and costs as a "real" launch? A launch that is for SpaceX's own porpoises rather than revenue generating porpoises might count differently, but is still a launch.
I would probably count successful vs unsuccessful launches as more interesting rather than paid / unpaid launches. Personally I'm inclined to count Zuma as successfully launched (on SpaceX part) and successfully obfuscated, given the coverage of it at the time.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 03 2018, @03:58PM (2 children)
Starlink doesn't earn them money until it works and SpaceX becomes an ISP. A Falcon Heavy demo launch doesn't earn them money.
SpaceX insists that Zuma wasn't a failure on their part, and they probably got paid for it, but there is still a lot of mystery surrounding it.
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by insanumingenium on Monday December 03 2018, @04:44PM (1 child)
Even if making money was your only metric (which I don't subscribe to personally), I wouldn't have a hard time justifying calling Falcon Heavy and Starlink launches marketing, hard to argue that they build the value of "the brand" and advertise impressive capabilities if we are taking this from a purely pecuniary POV.
I don't watch SpaceX (or anyone else's) launches cause I want them to make money, I watch them because I support space exploration in general, and every attempted launch (successful or not) adds to the total human knowledge of rocketry. I have zero reason to think we have seen our last technological advancement to come from space exploration.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Monday December 03 2018, @05:15PM
I want the company to be successful, and to have staying power. I want SpaceX to be able to thrive even if Musk dies on a joyride around the Moon. I don't think they will have achieved stability until Starlink is successful and BFR/Starship is regularly flying for satellite customers. Starlink is risky but potentially very rewarding, and BFR is needed to cream the competition for a good while. Success with a fully reusable rocket should also ensure that if SpaceX goes bankrupt sometime in the future for whatever reason, their design choices will live on and all competitors will have already moved towards full and rapid reusability.
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