Launch Roundup: Progress MS-28, Indian SSLV, and Falcon 9 flights scheduled

Date:
Mon, 12 Aug 2024 23:02:54 +0000

Description:
The second full week of August is another busy one, with four flights scheduled including The post Launch Roundup: Progress MS-28, Indian SSLV, and Falcon 9 flights scheduled appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

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The second full week of August is another busy one, with four flights scheduled including the final certification flight of a new launch vehicle from India. The Falcon 9 and Soyuz rockets are also scheduled to fly this
week with one mission to the International Space Station and a pair of non-Starlink flights from both coasts of the United States.

This weeks current launch schedule starts on Thursday, Aug. 15, with a possibility of up to four launches on that day. Progress MS-28 is scheduled
to launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with cargo for the ISS, and India is also scheduled to fly its SSLV small satellite launcher on its last certification flight that day. Later on Thursday, a Falcon 9 is scheduled to fly two Maxar imaging satellites from Florida. Finally, Transporter-11 is scheduled to lift off from California no earlier than that same Thursday.

The Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the earlier Progress MS-22 flight at Pad 31/6 in Kazahkstan ahead of liftoff. (Credit: RKK Energiya)

RKK Energiya Soyuz 2.1a | Progress MS-28

The third Progress flight of 2024 is scheduled to launch on Thursday, Aug.
15, at 03:20 UTC. The mission, scheduled to fly from Site 31/6 at the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, is to fly to the International Space Station with around 2,400 kg of food, water, clothing, fuel, and equipment
for the Expedition 71 crew.

Progress MS-28 is to rendezvous and dock with the Station on Saturday, Aug. 17, with docking set for 05:56 UTC. MS-28 will dock at the aft port on the Zvezda service module on the ISS Russian segment, taking the place of
Progress MS-26 on the Station.

This flight is the fourth launch of the year for the Soyuz 2.1a and just the seventh launch of a Soyuz family rocket in 2024. Russia has also had one Angara launch this year, for a total of eight launches in 2024. The launch of SSLV-D1, the first flight of the type. (Credit: ISRO)

ISRO SSLV | EOS-08

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is set to fly the last certification mission of its new small satellite launcher. The Small
Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) is scheduled to launch on Thursday, Aug. 15, at 03:47 UTC, just 27 minutes after Progress MS-28s launch. The rocket is to fly from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on
Sriharikota Island in the Bay of Bengal on Indias southeast coast.

The SSLV-D3 mission will take the EOS-08 Earth observation satellite to a circular low-Earth orbit at 475 km altitude with a 37.4-degree inclination. The EOS-08 is a microsatellite that masses 175.5 kg and is equipped with
three instruments. The spacecraft will use an electro-optical, infrared payload, a global navigation satellite system reflectometry payload, and a UV dosimeter, with a design mission life of one year. Two views of the EOS-08 satellite to be carried to orbit aboard SSLV-D3. (Credit: ISRO)

The mission will also carry a pair of cubesats, the Space Rickshaw-0 and the IITMSAT. With a successful mission, the SSLV will be certified for
operational missions by the Indian industry and the NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) organization. As part of an effort to encourage more private sector space activity, a new launch site for the SSLV is being built in the state of Tamil Nadu, at the southern tip of India.

The SSLV is a four-stage vehicle with three solid-fueled stages and a fourth stage known as a velocity trimming module. The fourth stage uses 16
hypergolic liquid-fueled thrusters to adjust the payloads orbit before releasing it. The 34-meter-tall vehicle is capable of flying up to 500 kg to
a low-Earth orbit or 300 kg to a Sun-synchronous polar orbit.

This flight is the first SSLV launch of 2024 and just the third overall
flight of the year for ISRO. The first SSLV flight in 2022 failed, but the second SSLV development flight in 2023 succeeded. SSLV-D3 is to be the last flight in ISROs development program if this flight is successful. with NSIL taking over future production and launch operations. The Maxar WorldView Legion 3 & 4 satellites before encapsulation in the Falcon 9s fairing. (Credit: Maxar Technologies)

SpaceX Falcon 9 | WorldView Legion 3 & 4

Falcon 9 is flying a non-Starlink mission from Florida this week, with the rocket lofting two WorldView Legion satellites into a mid-latitude low-Earth orbit from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Launch is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 15, at 9:00 AM EDT (13:00 UTC) at the start of a
three-hour window closing at 12:00 PM EDT (16:00 UTC).

The booster, which is not currently known, will take a northeast trajectory out of Florida before stage separation. While the second stage lifts the WorldView satellites into orbit, the first stage will conduct a boostback
burn and a return to the launch site, with a landing on the concrete pad at LZ-1. The two satellites will be released from the second stage using a custom-built dispenser assembled by Maxar and optimized for their spacecraft. The flight path of the WorldView Legion 3 & 4 mission after launch. (Credit: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency)

The WorldView Legion 3 & 4 satellites, totaling 1500 kg in mass, will join WorldView Legion 1 & 2 in orbit as part of the Maxar DigitalGlobe constellation of Earth observation satellites. These satellites are equipped with an optical imager capable of up to 30 cm class resolution in visible and infrared bands, and it is planned to fly six WorldView Legion satellites by the end of this year.

Once all six WorldView Legion satellites are in orbit, joining the four Maxar satellites that were in orbit before the Legion satellites started flying, Maxar will be able to collect more than six million square km of imagery on a daily basis. The company can also collect imagery of high-interest areas up
to every 20 to 30 minutes and can collect images at various times of the day due to the combination of Sun-synchronous and mid-latitude orbiting spacecraft.

This flight will be the 79th Falcon 9 flight of 2024, the 80th Falcon family flight of this year, and the fifth Falcon 9 flight of August. There were just six Falcon 9 flights in July due to the brief grounding after the July 11 Starlink 9-3 anomaly, but SpaceX is back to its usual flight cadence. A
Falcon 9 stands at SLC-4E at the Vandenberg Space Force Base. (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)

SpaceX Falcon 9|Transporter-11

SpaceXs regular series of rideshare missions for small payloads continues
with the Transporter-11 flight. Transporter-11 is scheduled to fly from Space Launch Complex-4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB) no earlier than Thursday, August 15. The vehicle is to take a southward trajectory with the rideshare payloads being deployed into a Sun-synchronous polar orbit.

The booster for this flight is not yet known, and the recovery method is not known with certainty, though it is likely to involve a landing at LZ-4 next
to SLC-4E. For this mission, around 50 payloads from multiple companies,
space agencies, and countries will be atop Falcon 9, deployed at altitudes ranging from 510 to 590 km.

These payloads will perform various tasks in orbit, ranging from carbon monitoring, weather observation, fisheries monitoring, Earth observation with radar and optical means, communications, propulsion demonstration, and other purposes. The Arctic Weather Satellite before launch on the Transporter-11 mission. (Credit: ESA)

The European Space Agencys Arctic Weather Satellite is on board this flight. The 120 kg microsatellite, built by OHB in Sweden, will take advantage of its Sun-synchronous orbit to monitor weather in the Arctic and improve forecasts for this region. This satellite is a prototype for a possible future constellation of satellites to improve weather forecasting in Earths polar regions and elsewhere on our planet.

Capellas Acadia-5, a 160 kg microsatellite, will use synthetic aperture radar to observe Earth under all weather and lighting conditions. It will join Acadia-4 in a mid-latitude low-Earth orbit to help the company provide comprehensive coverage of the planet. These satellites also have optical inter-satellite links and increased bandwidth relative to previous Capella satellites. The CAKRA-1 satellite for the Indonesian Ministry of Fisheries
and Marine Affairs before launch on Transporter-11. (Credit: Exolaunch)

NASA has several payloads aboard this flight, and customers from countries such as Senegal, Poland, Finland, Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, Germany, Hungary, Spain, and Britain are also represented. Celestis also has a Harmony Flight payload onboard of cremated human remains as part of its space funeral service.

If schedules hold, this flight will be the 80th Falcon 9 launch of 2024 and the 81st Falcon family flight of the year. Transporter-11 will also be the sixth Falcon 9 flight of August, matching last months total with more than half of the month to go. SpaceX has planned to fly up to 148 Falcon 9 flights this year, though reaching that goal may be in question now.

(Lead image: Progress MS-28 shown during vacuum chamber testing. Credit: Roscosmos)

The post Launch Roundup: Progress MS-28, Indian SSLV, and Falcon 9 flights scheduled appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2024/08/launch-roundup-081224/


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