A Busy Morning at Cape Canaveral
Two Launches Completed, but Ax-4 is Still Earthbound
It was a busy morning this morning for SpaceX and ULA at Cape Canaveral.
In the early morning hours just before 2:00 am, the launch company boosted 27 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the 25th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19, and now 21 Starlink missions.
Later, a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying the Kuiper 2 mission for Amazon’s Project Kuiper lifted off at 6:54 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex-41. This mission marks the next step in Amazon’s initiative to provide fast, reliable internet to customers around the world, including those in unserved and underserved communities.
The Kuiper 2 launch deployed the second batch of operational Project Kuiper satellites into the intended orbit. There are six remaining Kuiper missions on the Atlas V rocket, building up to 38 high-cadence, rapid fire launches on the next-generation Vulcan rocket. ULA will deliver more than half of the Project Kuiper constellation’s 3,200 satellites, through the world’s largest commercial launch agreement.
If you're on the west coast, you're not left out. SpaceX is planning to launch the Transporter-14 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base later today. The 57-minute launch window opens at 2:18 p.m. PT. Transporter-14 is a dedicated smallsat rideshare mission. There are 70 payloads on this flight, including cubesats, microsats, re-entry capsules, and orbital transfer vehicles carrying three of those payloads to be deployed at a later time.
This will be the 26th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission which previously launched NROL-87, NROL-85, SARah-1, SWOT, Transporter-8, Transporter-9, NROL-146, Bandwagon-2, NROL-153, NROL-192, and 15 Starlink missions. Following stage separation, Falcon 9 will land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship stationed in the Pacific Ocean.
But the international group of astronauts slated to fly on the Ax-4 Mission are still on Earth. The planned Sunday launch of Ax-4 was scrubbed. NASA made the call to further delay the mission to allow for additional time to continue evaluating International Space Station operations after recent repair work in the aft-most segment of the orbital laboratory’s Zvezda service module. Because of the space station’s interconnected and interdependent systems, NASA wants to ensure the station is ready for additional crew members, and the agency is taking the time necessary to review data.
NASA, Axiom Space and SpaceX are reviewing potential launch dates, and will make an announcement when a new launch date has been finalized.