A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket will launch two business communications satellites to orbit Tuesday (Oct. 4), and you’ll watch the liftoff stay.
A 196-foot-tall (60 meters) Atlas V topped with the SES-20 and SES-21 spacecraft is scheduled to raise off Tuesday at 5:36 p.m. EDT (2136 GMT) from Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Florida. Watch it stay right here at House.com, courtesy of ULA, or straight by way of the corporate (opens in new tab).
If all goes in accordance with plan, the rocket’s Centaur higher stage will deploy the dual SES-20 and SES-21 satellites into near-circular, near-geosynchronous orbits about half-hour aside. SES-21 would be the second of the 2 to separate, at roughly 6 hours and 20 minutes after liftoff.
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The 2 spacecraft will then use their onboard propulsion programs to circularize their orbits, which is able to ship them zooming round Earth about 22,300 miles (35,900 kilometers) above the equator, in accordance with a ULA mission description (opens in new tab).
As soon as the satellites are established in these orbits and have been by way of a checkout interval, SES-20 and SES-21 can start doing what they have been constructed to do — present tv broadcasting service throughout the US for the Luxembourg telecom firm SES.
“Constructed by Boeing with 1000’s of slender and steerable beams and the flexibility to isolate interference sources, the 2 spacecraft present SES and future prospects the flexibility to broaden, lengthen and even change a satellite tv for pc’s protection space and mission all through its life,” ULA representatives wrote within the mission description.
“Confirmed {hardware} coupled with next-generation technology created an reasonably priced and light-weight spacecraft, enabling two satellites to launch on a single rocket,” they added.
The Atlas V launch is a part of a busy week in spaceflight. For instance, SpaceX plans to launch the Crew-5 astronaut mission for NASA on Wednesday (Oct. 5) and two telecom satellites for the corporate Intelsat on Thursday (Oct. 6).
Three different missions are on faucet for Thursday (Oct. 6) as properly, together with a Rocket Lab launch that can ship to orbit a satellite tv for pc constructed by the power and technology agency Basic Atomics.
As well as, SpaceX plans to loft one other huge batch of its Starlink web satellites within the coming days; the timing depends upon whether or not or nor Crew-5 will get off the bottom as deliberate on Wednesday, firm representatives mentioned by way of Twitter on Monday (opens in new tab) (Oct. 3).
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a ebook in regards to the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Fb (opens in new tab).