Taking full benefit of every week of dry air, gentle temperatures and customarily favorable climate alongside the Area Coast, a twice-flown Falcon 9 booster took flight from storied Area Launch Complicated (SLC)-40 at Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station, Fla., early Wednesday, laden with the U.S. Area Pressure’s sixth Block III International Positioning System (GPS III-06) navigation and timing satellite tv for pc. Liftoff of B1077—which beforehand noticed service to loft Dragon Endurance and her Crew-5 quartet of NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan’s Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina to the Worldwide Area Station (ISS), final 5 October—came about at 7:24 a.m. EST.
Consistent with custom, all Block III GPS birds are named for long-gone explorers, with GPS III-01 and GPS III-02—the primary of which rode a SpaceX Falcon 9 in December 2018, the second a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Medium the next August—recognizing “Age of Sail” navigators Amerigo Vespucci and Ferdinand Magellan. The third satellite tv for pc, launched by SpaceX in June 2020, initially acknowledged Christopher Columbus, however was later renamed for the early Twentieth-century polar pioneer Matthew Henson.
Extra not too long ago, November 2020’s GPS III-04—which went on to finish its on-orbit commissioning in record-setting time—paid tribute to Sacagawea, a Lemhi Shoshone girl of Idaho, who, aged simply 16, aided the Lewis and Clark Expedition to discover the Louisiana Territory in 1803-1806. And GPS III-05, launched in June 2021, bore the identify of Neil Armstrong, the primary human to set foot on the Moon.
Right this moment’s GPS III-06 is called for Amelia Earhart, the primary girl to fly solo throughout the Atlantic. Born in Atchison, Kan., on 24 July 1897, Earhart was an adventurer from childhood, gaining flying expertise in her twenties and in 1928 turning into the primary feminine passenger to cross the Atlantic by airplane.
4 years later, on 20 Might 1932, piloting a Lockheed Vega 5B high-wing monoplane, she made a continuous solo transatlantic flight, turning into the primary girl to take action. In 14 hours and 56 minutes that day, having battled icy situations, mechanical issues and robust northerly winds, Earhart flew from Harbour Grace, in japanese Newfoundland, to land in a pasture at Culmore, north in Derry in Northern Eire.
When she alighted in that Irish pasture, a farmhand is claimed to have requested her if she had traveled far. “From America,” Earhart nonchalantly retorted.
She earned worldwide fame and recognition, which made her disappearance in July 1937 all of the extra stunning. Flying with navigator Fred Noonan on an tried circumnavigation of the globe, their Lockheed Mannequin 10E Electra twin-engine monoplane was misplaced over the Pacific Ocean.
They’d final been seen in Lae, New Guinea, heading to the northwest in the direction of Howland Island, with expectations that they might journey onward to Honolulu. Eighteen months later, the pair have been declared formally deceased, though hypothesis as to what occurred to them greater than eight a long time in the past continues to arouse debate.
GPS III-06, bearing Earhart’s identify, is a part of a next-generation constellation of worldwide positioning, velocity and timing satellites. Every is destined for Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at a imply altitude of 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers).
Constructing upon a GPS Navstar heritage, which dates again to the Nineteen Seventies, Block III acquired underway greater than twenty years in the past. The Air Pressure awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.4 billion contract in Might 2008 to develop an preliminary pair of Block III satellites for an eventual 32-satellite community.
The primary launch was focused for 2014, however payload-related difficulties pushed this system’s maiden flight again nearly 5 years. Within the meantime, in March 2018 the Air Pressure awarded SpaceX a $290.5 million contract to launch the fourth, fifth and sixth Block III satellites.
The primary two satellites—GPS III-04 and GPS III-05—have been duly launched in November 2020 and June 2021, with as we speak’s flight of GPS III-06 closing out the three-mission contract.
Though SpaceX’s launch companies contract is comparatively latest, {hardware} for GPS III-06 has been within the works for nearly a decade. Procurement of long-lead-time elements for the satellite tv for pc have been awarded by the Air Pressure in February 2013 and Lockheed Martin acquired authorization to finish manufacturing of GPS III-06 the next December.
By mid-2017, it was reported that elements for the brand new satellite tv for pc and 5 others have been “arriving…each day from greater than 250 provider in 29 states” and in April 2018 GPS III-06 commenced its structural build-up in Lockheed Martin’s GPS III Processing Facility close to Denver, Colo. The satellite tv for pc concluded its Thermal Vacuum Chamber (TVC) marketing campaign in late 2019 and after reportedly incurring a number of meeting failures throughout testing was declared “Out there for Launch” (AfL) within the late spring of 2021.
Late final October, the 8,500-pound (3,900-kilogram) satellite tv for pc was shipped from Denver, by way of the Buckley Area Pressure Base flightline in Aurora, Colo., en-route to the Astrotech Area Operations facility in Titusville, Fla. Right here, GPS III-06 underwent post-shipment practical testing, fueling and encapsulation in its Falcon 9 payload shroud.
In the meantime, in September 2020—in a choice predicted to save lots of round $52.7 million—the Area Pressure signed a contract modification with SpaceX to fly aboard previously-flown Falcon 9 boosters. All earlier Nationwide Safety Area Launches (NSSLs) have been executed utilizing solely brand-new cores.
However when GPS III-05 launched in June 2021 it did so, for the primary time, atop a “used” Falcon 9. So too did final Sunday’s USSF-67 mission, which flew atop a brand-new Falcon Heavy core and two reflown side-boosters.
Chargeable for lifting GPS III-06 uphill as we speak was none aside from B1077, which entered service final October to ship Crew-5 to the area station. This specific booster suffered a fairly inauspicious begin in life, when her transport car impacted a highway bridge final summer season, throughout transit from SpaceX’s meeting manufacturing unit in Hawthorne, Calif., to the rocket improvement facility in McGregor, Texas.
B1077 sustained injury to her inter-stage throughout the incident, which reportedly occurred near Van Horn, Texas. Following repairs and X-ray inspections, she was cleared for flight and final 5 October carried out admirably on her maiden outing, returning to land a couple of minutes afterward the expansive deck of the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS), “Simply Learn the Directions”.
In readiness for Wednesday’s launch of GPS III-06, the ASDS “A Shortfall of Gravitas” put to sea from Port Canaveral final Friday, certain for a place offshore within the Atlantic Ocean. In the meantime, the satellite tv for pc itself—encapsulated inside its bullet-like payload shroud—was transported to the launch web site final weekend.
Climate situations for each Wednesday’s opening launch try at 7:10 a.m. EST, and for Thursday’s backup alternative at 7:05 a.m. EST, have been predicted to hover round 90-percent-favorable, due to an ongoing pattern of dry air and gentle temperatures. “A weakening frontal boundary is predicted to stall out to the north of the Spaceport,” famous the forty fifth Climate Squadron at Patrick Area Pressure Base in its Tuesday morning L-1 replace, “extending favorable launch climate situations into the first and backup launch days, with negligible possibilities for Cumulus Cloud Rule violations.”
Liftoff itself got here slightly later, at 7:24 a.m. EST, as B1077 powered easily uphill in SpaceX’s fourth mission from the Area Coast inside January’s first three weeks. Already achieved are the second batch of broadband satellites for London, England-based OneWeb, the 114-strong Transporter-6 rideshare—atop a record-tying, 15-times-flown Falcon 9—and final Sunday’s rousing post-sunset launch of the mammoth Falcon Heavy.
Two and a half minutes into this morning’s ascent, B1077 separated from the stack and descended to an ideal touchdown on the ASDS, while the only Merlin 1D+ Vacuum engine of the Falcon 9’s second stage executed a customary six-minute “burn” to ship GPS III-06 on the primary leg of her trek to MEO. As this AmericaSpace story was being ready, deployment of the satellite tv for pc was scheduled to happen about 90 minutes after this morning’s launch.
Forward lies a section of on-orbit testing for GPS III-06 earlier than it’s declared operational. Like its Block III predecessors, it’s primarily based upon Lockheed Martin’s tried-and-true A2100 “bus”, whose modular framework furnishes 15 kilowatts of electrical energy by way of high-efficiency photo voltaic cells, radiation-cooled traveling-wave tube assemblies and an improved heat-pipe design.
Block III’s 15-year operational lifetime represents a 25-percent quantum leap over earlier GPS satellite tv for pc capabilities, along with 500 occasions higher transmitting energy, improved navigational warfare talents, 3 times higher accuracy and an eightfold enhancement in anti-jamming performance. All instructed, this permits it to close off service to restricted geographical areas, while sustaining uninterrupted provision for U.S. and allied forces.
It contains a cross-linked command and management structure, which allows the complete Block III constellation to be up to date from a single floor station. Moreover, the satellites showcase a “spot-beam” functionality for enhanced Navy-Code (“M-Code”) protection and improved resistance to hostile jamming.
With GPS III-06 now in area, three of her sisters are ready patiently within the wings for their very own launches. GPS III-07—named in honor of Sally Journey, America’s first girl in area—was declared Out there for Launch (AfL) in Might 2022 and is focusing on a launch atop ULA’s new Vulcan-Centaur booster subsequent yr. GPS III-08 was declared AfL final June and GPS III-09 underwent the combination of its Mission Module and Propulsion Core final Might, earlier than heading into environmental testing.
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