Telstar 18 Vantage (APStar 5C) - Falcon 9 - CCAFS SLC-40 - 10.09.2018

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Emre Kelly‏Подлинная учетная запись @EmreKelly 3 ч.3 часа назад

Launch hazard area issued for this weekend's #SpaceX Telstar 18V launch from CCAFS. Teams targeting early Sunday (9/9) for liftoff, followed by OCISLY drone ship landing. LHA in effect from 2115 ET on 9/8 to 0400 ET on 9/9 (0015 to 0800 UTC).

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 13 мин. назад

SpaceX's Falcon 9 Booster (B1049.1) is vertical on SLC-40 the Static Fire test ahead of Telstar 18V/APStar 5C!

Thanks Evan!

Evan Richard‏ @TheEvangineer

В ответ @NASASpaceflight @EmreKelly

A very pixilated image would indicate yes



12:44 - 4 сент. 2018 г.

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Обновление NOTMAR

NAVAREA IV 733/2018 (11,26)

WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC.
FLORIDA.
1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS 090323Z TO 090759Z SEP,
   ALTERNATE 100323Z TO 100759Z SEP
   IN AREAS BOUND BY:
   A. 28-37N 080-37W, 28-36N 079-58W,
   28-31N 079-58W, 28-30N 080-33W.
   B. 28-29N 075-05W, 28-32N 074-20W,
   28-24N 072-40W, 28-15N 072-06W,
   28-05N 072-06W, 28-11N 074-20W,
   28-20N 075-10W.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 100859Z SEP 18.

( 040820Z SEP 2018 )

Обновлены дата и времена пускового окна, запасной день с пусковым окном. Координаты опасных зон - без изменений. Предыдущий NOTMAR и карта - см #9 и #11 соответственно.

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Stephen Marr‏ @spacecoast_stve 28 мин. назад

@SpaceXFleet My roommate (@Kraken_Brad) just sent me this from Fishlips. #OCISLY movin out!

Video (0:11)


Michael Baylor‏ @nextspaceflight 9 мин. назад

OCISLY is on its way to the landing zone for Telstar 18V. Meanwhile, Falcon 9 B1049.1 is vertical at SLC-40 ahead of the static fire.

Julia‏ @julia_bergeron 17 мин. назад

Safe travels Hawk and OCISLY. It appears they are heading out to sea for the next catch this weekend. I have yet to see a rocket on the horizon for static fire though.
#SpaceXFleet

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AstroHardin‏ @AstroHardin 20 мин. назад

#SpaceX will be conducting a Static Fire Test of their #Falcon9 rocket at LC-40 on #CCAFS tomorrow, 9/5/18. The test run is scheduled to occur within a 6-hour test window, currently scheduled for 1000 - 1600 Eastern Time.

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 13 мин. назад

STATIC FIRE! Visual observations of B1049.1 firing up for the Static Fire test. As below, wait for SpaceX to tweet the confirmation.

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Сообщение 45-го КК

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SpaceX‏Подлинная учетная запись @SpaceX 2 мин. назад

Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete—targeting September 8 launch of Telstar 18 VANTAGE from Pad 40 in Florida.

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Объявлена

Airspace Closure Area

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45-е КК официально опубликовало

Launch Hazard Area

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Прогноз погоды L-3 на 2018-09-08 (local)

Falcon 9 Telstar-18V L-3 Forecast

60% GO

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William Harwood‏ @cbs_spacenews 29 мин. назад

F9/Telstar18V: SpaceX confirms a good hot fire test today of a Falcon 9 rocket at CCAFS pad 40; launch of Telstar 18V targeted for 11:28pm EDT Saturday; here's an iPhone view of hotfire test from 10 miles away

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/09/05/hotfire-test-keeps-spacex-on-schedule-for-weekend-launch/

Hotfire test keeps SpaceX on schedule for weekend launch
September 5, 2018 | Stephen Clark


A plume of exhaust erupted fr om the Falcon 9's launch pad as the rocket test-fired its engines at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) Wednesday. Credit: William Harwood/CBS News

A brief test-firing of a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday morning kept SpaceX on track for a launch Saturday night from Cape Canaveral with a communications satellite to be jointly used by Telesat and APT Satellite of Hong Kong.

The rocket's nine Merlin 1D main engines ignited at Cape Canaveral's Complex 40 launch pad at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) Wednesday after SpaceX engineers filled the two-stage Falcon 9 with a mixture of super-chilled kerosene and liquid oxygen.

SpaceX confirmed the static fire test in a tweet a few minutes later.

SpaceX‏Подлинная учетная запись @SpaceX

Static fire test of Falcon 9 complete—targeting September 8 launch of Telstar 18 VANTAGE from Pad 40 in Florida.

7:21 - 5 сент. 2018 г.

The mock countdown Wednesday morning occurred without the rocket's satellite payload on-board. The next step in the launch campaign will be the lowering of the Falcon 9 from its launch mount, then the return of the launcher to a nearby hangar at the Florida spaceport.

Technicians in the hangar will mate the mission's payload — the Telstar 18 VANTAGE communications satellite — to the forward end of the Falcon 9's upper stage in the next few days, conduct a series of electrical and mechanical connectivity verifications, then roll the rocket back to its seaside launch pad Saturday.

The four-hour launch window opens at 11:28 p.m. EDT Saturday (0328 GMT Sunday), after several delays that pushed back the flight from last month.

A forecast issued Wednesday by the U.S. Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron predicts a 60 percent chance of favorable conditions during Saturday night's launch window.

"Cloudiness and showers will gradually increase over the spaceport on Friday and Saturday as an upper-level trough moves westerly across Florida," forecasters wrote. "Low-level winds become more southerly during this time frame, enhancing the convergent band shower threat. The launch weather concerns are cumulus and thick clouds. Maximum upper-level winds will be from the northeast at 20 knots at 40,000 feet."

Isolated rain showers are forecast to be in the area at launch time, with scattered clouds at 2,500 feet, and broken cloud decks at 15,000 feet and 25,000 feet. Good visibility, a temperature of around 78 degrees Fahrenheit, and winds of 12 to 17 mph from the south-southeast are expected.

The rocket assigned to launch the Telstar 18 VANTAGE satellite is a newly-built Falcon 9 Block 5 vehicle. SpaceX's ocean-going landing platform has departed Port Canaveral en route for a position in the Atlantic Ocean to recover the Falcon 9's first stage following Saturday night's blastoff.

Спойлер

Artist's concept of the Telstar 18 VANTAGE satellite. Credit: Telesat/SSL

The Telstar 18 VANTAGE spacecraft, built by SSL in Palo Alto, California, will provide C-band and Ku-band communications services across the Asia-Pacific region from a perch in geostationary orbit nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) over the equator.

The new satellite will launch into an elliptical transfer orbit aboard the Falcon 9, then use its on-board thruster to climb into a circular orbit, wh ere its orbital velocity will match the rate of Earth's rotation at 138 degrees east longitude.

Once Telstar 18 VANTAGE arrives at its operating post, it will commence a 15-year mission, beaming high-throughput signals to serve direct-to-home broadcast, video distribution, maritime, and other telecom markets. Carrying a combination of broad regional beams and high-bandwidth spot beams, the satellite's coverage area will span from India and Pakistan in the west, to Hawaii in the east.

APT Satellite — also known as APSTAR — of Hong Kong will use 57.5 percent of the satellite's communications capacity, in exchange for funding 57.5 percent of the mission's total cost, officials said. The Telesat 18 VANTAGE satellite is also named APSTAR 5C, and it will replace the aging Telstar 18/APSTAR 5 telecom craft hauled into orbit by a Sea Launch Zenit 3SL booster in 2004.

In 2015, APSTAR agreed to pay $118.8 million for its share of the new Telstar 18 VANTAGE/APSTAR 5C satellite program, according to the company's filings with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. That suggests the total cost of the mission is roughly $206 million.

The agreement gives APSTAR use of an equivalent of 36.2 of the satellite's total complement of 63 transponders, the company said in a statement.

APSTAR operates five geostationary communications satellites, while Telesat, headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, counts 16 geostationary telecom craft in its fleet, in addition to a pathfinder satellite for a planned broadband network in low Earth orbit.

"Telstar 18 VANTAGE is a high throughput, highly flexible, state-of-the-art satellite that will provide a significant competitive advantage to customers serving the demanding requirements of broadcast, enterprise and government users throughout Asia ," said Dan Goldberg, Telesat's President and CEO, in a statement released when the companies announced the new satellite program in 2015. "We are pleased to be making this important addition to our global satellite fleet and, moreover, pleased to continue our long and successful relationship with APSTAR, a leading Asian operator with whom we have closely cooperated for over a decade."

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Emre Kelly‏Подлинная учетная запись @EmreKelly 5 мин. назад

Side note for Saturday's #SpaceX launch: It's not the heaviest #Falcon9 payload to date, which was secured by TELSTAR 19V in July at 7,075 kg, but it's close – TELSTAR 18V's launch mass clocks in at 7,060 kg. Destination is GTO and will serve Asia + Pacific.

(: Telesat)

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 33 мин. назад

ARTICLE:

Falcon 9 booster fires up as astronauts visit SpaceX Fleet -

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/09/falcon-9-fires-up-astronauts-spacex-fleet/ ...

Many thanks to @julia_bergeron for the SpaceX Fleet and Astros pics.

Спойлер

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Прогноз погоды L-2 на 2018-09-08 (local)

Falcon 9 Telstar-18V L-2 Forecast

60% GO

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Stephen Clark‏ @StephenClark1 41 мин. назад

Telesat official says the Falcon 9 launch with the Telstar 18 VANTAGE telecom satellite is slipping — was to be Saturday night. No new target launch date has been confirmed.

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 9 мин. назад

No idea what the problem is (per the slip noted below) but for what it's worth the booster - which was still vertical on SLC-40 as of this morning local time - has since been lowered to horizontal.

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Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 14 сек. назад

Shotwell says next Falcon 9 launch still scheduled for this weekend (amid rumors of a delay.)

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Stephen Clark‏ @StephenClark1 7 мин. назад

Patrick Air Force Base's website now lists the Falcon 9/Telstar 18 VANTAGE launch as scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 9: https://www.patrick.af.mil 

45-е КК (Patric AFB) извещает