A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket will launch two industrial 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 Area Pressure Station in Florida. Watch it stay right here at Area.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company (opens in new tab).
If all goes based on 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 techniques to circularize their orbits, which is able to ship them zooming round Earth about 22,300 miles (35,900 kilometers) above the equator, based on a ULA mission description (opens in new tab).
As soon as the satellites are established in these orbits and have been by a checkout interval, SES-20 and SES-21 can start doing what they had been constructed to do — present tv broadcasting service throughout the US for the Luxembourg telecom firm SES.
“Constructed by Boeing with hundreds of slender and steerable beams and the power to isolate interference sources, the 2 spacecraft present SES and future prospects the power to broaden, lengthen and even change a satellite’s protection space and mission all through its life,” ULA representatives wrote within the mission description.
“Confirmed {hardware} coupled with next-generation know-how created an inexpensive 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 nicely, together with a Rocket Lab launch that may ship to orbit a satellite constructed by the vitality and know-how agency Common Atomics.Â
As well as, SpaceX plans to loft one other massive 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 said via 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 e book 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 Facebook (opens in new tab). Â
