Tajny satelita19.12. o 14:00 z KSC wystartowała RN Falcon-9R. Wyniosła ona na orbitę o parametrach: hp=519 km, ha=539 km, i=51,35° tajne satelity USA-312 i USA-313 (misja NRO L-108). Pierwszy stopień RN (B1059.5) w T+8' 45" wylądował na LZ-1.
http://lk.astronautilus.pl/n201216.htm#04
statystyki startu
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=4321.msg154901#msg154901SpaceX wraps up 2020 with Falcon 9 launch of classified NRO satelliteby Sandra Erwin — December 19, 2020
A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched a classified mission for the National Reconnaissance Office Dec. 19. 2020. NROL-108 lifted off at 9:00 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.A Falcon 9 carrying the NROL-108 mission lifted off at Dec. 19 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center.WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched a classified mission for the National Reconnaissance Office Dec. 19. It was the company’s 26th and final launch of 2020.
The Falcon 9 carrying the NROL-108 mission lifted off at 9:00 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Approximately eight minutes later, the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to Cape Canaveral’s Landing Zone 1, marking the company’s 70th successful recovery of a first-stage booster.
The launch was originally scheduled on Dec. 17 but was scrubbed after engineers put a hold on the countdown less than two minutes before liftoff. The company delayed the launch to evaluate a high pressure sensor reading in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank.
This was SpaceX’s second launch for the NRO. The first one was NROL-76 which flew on a Falcon 9 in May 2017 from the same pad.
The NRO builds and operates the U.S. government’s spy satellites. The NROL-108 mission and final orbit are classified. SpaceX’s webcast ended about eight minutes after liftoff and did not show the second stage.
The Falcon 9 booster used in the NROL-108 launch completed its fifth flight. It last flew on Aug. 30 when it launched the Saocom Argentine radar satellite from Cape Canaveral.
Although NROL-108 is a U.S. government mission, it was a commercially procured launch and not part of the U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program. That was also the case with NROL-76 in 2017.
The NRO and other government agencies buy commercial launch services under “delivery in orbit” contracts where the procurement of a satellite is bundled with the launch service.
Wayne Monteith, associate administrator for commercial space transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration, said the NROL-108 mission is an example of the NRO leveraging the commercial licensing process. “It’s a way to reduce costs,” he said Dec. 15 during a Space Foundation virtual event.
The NRO also has procured commercial launches from Rocket Lab, which also are licensed by the FAA.https://spacenews.com/spacex-wraps-up-2020-with-falcon-9-launch-of-classified-nro-satellite/NRO using SpaceX’s commercial launch service for spy satellite payloadDecember 16, 2020 Stephen Clark
SpaceX raised a Falcon 9 rocket vertical on pad 39A Wednesday for the company’s final mission of the year. Credit: Spaceflight Nowhttps://spaceflightnow.com/2020/12/16/nro-using-spacexs-commercial-launch-service-for-spy-satellite-payload/SpaceX closes out record-setting year of launches from Florida’s Space CoastDecember 19, 2020 Stephen Clark
A Falcon 9 rocket takes off from pad 39A with the NROL-108 mission. Credit: SpaceXSpaceX hurled a secret cargo into space for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency Saturday, the 30th rocket launch to fly into Earth orbit from pads on Florida’s Space Coast in 2020. The Falcon 9 flight broke an annual record for missions to reach orbit from the Florida spaceport that stood for 54 years.
It was the 31st major rocket launch from Florida’s Space Coast overall this year, including a high-altitude demonstration of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon abort system in January.
SpaceX logged 25 launches from Florida this year — with 24 orbital missions — and United Launch Alliance flew six times with its Atlas 5 and Delta 4-Heavy rocket families.
Before 2020, the previous record for launches from the Space Coast that reached orbit was 29, a mark set in 1966. There were 31 orbital launch attempts from Cape Canaveral that year, plus two suborbital test flights of the Apollo-era Saturn 1B launcher, for a total of 33 space launches from Florida in 1966, according to a
launch log maintained by Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks global satellite and launch activity.
A run at breaking that record will have to wait for another year.
SpaceX’s second dedicated mission for the National Reconnaissance Office — and the company’s
26th and final flight of the year — took off at 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) Saturday. (...)
The reusable booster, designated B1059, completed its fifth trip to space and back. It was the
70th time SpaceX successfully recovered a Falcon booster since nailing the first intact landing on Dec. 21, 2015, five years ago Monday. (...)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off Saturday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Credit: National Reconnaissance Office(...) The exact purpose of the NRO payload on Saturday’s mission, codenamed NROL-108, was kept secret by the government spy satellite agency. SpaceX’s live webcast of the launch focused on the return of the first stage to Cape Canaveral, and ended live video from the upper stage at the request of the NRO.
The NRO declared the launch a success in a tweet several hours after liftoff, wrapping up the intelligence-gathering agency’s sixth launch of the year.
It was the 26th Falcon 9 launch by SpaceX alone this year, including 25 flights from Florida and one from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. SpaceX’s previous record for the most Falcon launches in a year was 21 in 2018. (...)
The NROL-108 mission did not appear on any public launch schedules until early October, when Spaceflight Now was first to report the existence of the mission. At that time, the mission was scheduled for Oct. 25, but the flight was delayed several times amid changing SpaceX launch schedules and other NRO launch activity at Cape Canaveral. (...)
The launch was the 38th FAA-licensed commercial space launch of the year by a U.S. company, exceeding the previous mark of 33 such missions in 2018. That number includes space launches from other U.S. spaceports, and flights by U.S.-headquartered Rocket Lab from its privately-owned base in New Zealand.
“The future for this industry is no longer conjecture, prognostication and wishful thinking,” said Wayne Monteith, the FAA’s associate administrator for space transportation. “It is demonstrated an accelerated growth. It is an increase in cadence on steroids.”
“We’ve launched more commercial space launches in just the last four years than we did in the previous 15 years combined,” Monteith said Tuesday in virtual presentation at the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium 365 forum. “In 2011, we only had a single commercial space launch.”
“Next year, we should easily surpass 50 commercial launches, and potentially over 100 shortly thereafter,” Monteith said. “We see mega-constellations going up, and we see the beginnings of an exceptionally robust space tourism sector. We see initiatives for commercial off-world efforts. We see commercial companies who can return material from space.” (...)
The launch track toward the northeast and the location of the Falcon 9’s upper stage re-entry over the Pacific Ocean suggest the mission was expected to place its cargo into an orbit inclined around 52 degrees to the equator, according to Langbroek.
The Falcon 9 reserved enough propellant in its first stage to return to a landing at Cape Canaveral, rather than aiming for an offshore landing on a SpaceX droneship. That indicated the mission is likely aiming for a relatively low orbit a few hundred miles above Earth, Langbroek wrote on his website, similar but not identical to the orbit of the NROL-76 mission in 2017.
The expected orbit for the NROL-108 mission does not match the NRO’s known fleet of optical, radar, and signals intelligence satellites, expert analysts said. (...)
https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/12/19/spacex-closes-out-record-year-of-launches-from-floridas-space-coast/https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/12/spacex-to-complete-2020-with-nro/(AS)
https://www.forum.kosmonauta.net/index.php?topic=4321.msg154911#msg154911https://www.urania.edu.pl/wiadomosci/rakieta-falcon-9-wysyla-tajnego-satelite-nrol-108-w-ostatniej-misji-w-2020-rokuhttps://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/nrol-108.htm
Wątek: Falcon 9 | NROL-108 | 19.12.2020 (Przeczytany 6053 razy)