SpaceX is ready to launch a GPS satellite to orbit on Wednesday morning (Jan. 18), and you’ll watch the liftoff stay.
A Falcon 9 booster from SpaceX is scheduled to ship GPS III Area Car 06, a complicated World Positioning System satellite, to space on Wednesday at 7:10 a.m. EST (1210 GMT) from Area Launch Advanced 40 at Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station in Florida. Watch it stay right here at Area.com courtesy of SpaceX or directly via the company (opens in new tab).
The launch will probably be SpaceX’s fourth in 2023 and, as standard, the primary stage of the Falcon 9 will try a touchdown roughly eight minutes after launch.
Associated: 8 ways SpaceX has transformed spaceflight forever
This GPS satellite is known as after Amelia Earhart, a distinguished feminine aviation pioneer who was the primary non-male pilot to fly throughout the Atlantic Ocean. This launch would be the sixth of the GPS III sequence; the final one, named after Neil Armstrong, launched in June 2021.
The satellite will probably be launched on behalf of the U.S. Space Force as half of a bigger push to modernize the nation’s GPS fleet. The brand new satellite has an anticipated lifetime of 15 years and can finally type a part of a set of 32 next-generation satellites, according to its maker, Lockheed Martin (opens in new tab).
The newest technology of GPS spacecraft has as much as 3 times higher accuracy, eight instances enchancment in anti-jamming methods and a brand new modular design for diversifications “to higher handle altering mission wants and rising threats,” Lockheed Martin said.
The corporate says that roughly half the world’s inhabitants (or 4 billion customers) depends on GPS expertise for all the things from transportation to specific agriculture monitoring to utility infrastructure (a few of which makes use of GPS partly to pinpoint service areas.)
The U.S. GPS community is just not the one set of navigation satellites accessible, nevertheless. The European Union has an unbiased set often known as Galileo, Russia has GLONASS, and China has a system known as Beidou. Independence of GPS methods is commonly raised as an essential matter of nationwide sovereignty and safety, particularly within the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a guide about space medication. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
