In what will be a quiet week for orbital launches, Rocket Lab will launch its first suborbital Electron mission; SpaceX will launch the Satria satellite to geostationary transfer orbit; China will launch an unknown payload; the United Launch Alliance (ULA) will launch the penultimate Delta IV Heavy on the NROL-68 mission; and SpaceX will launch a Starlink mission.
These missions will mark 2023’s 91st through 94th launch attempts, with an orbital launch attempt occurring every 1.85 days.
Rocket Lab’s first hypersonic accelerator suborbital test Electron (HASTE) mission is scheduled to lift off on Saturday, June 17 at 8:45 PM EDT (00:45 UTC on June 18) from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 2 at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. In April of this year, the defense innovation unit selected the HASTE program to prototype a hypersonic launch under the hypersonic and high-cadence testing capabilities program. As the name implies, this program aims to increase hypersonic launch cadence and decrease cost.
Rocket Lab’s HASTE missions will use its well-proven Electron launch vehicle with a modified kick stage and fairings. As the rocket is not attempting to reach orbit, Electron’s payload capacity increases to 700 kilograms; however, due to the classified nature of this mission, the payload and its mass are not known.
Exclusion zones for the DYNAMO-A mission. (Credit: OneSpeed on NSF Forum)
On Sunday, June 18 at 6:04 PM EDT (22:04 UTC), SpaceX is set to launch its 41st mission of 2023 on the Satria mission. Launching from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, the Falcon 9 will launch the Satria (also known as PSN MFS) Indonesian Ka-band high-throughput communications satellite to geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite will then spend the coming months raising its orbit into the 146-degree East geostationary Earth orbit slot.
On June 16, the Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron released a mission execution forecast giving a 40% chance of violating weather constraints at the start of the 3.5-hour window; at the end of the window, the weather improves to a 25% chance of violating weather constraints. In the event of a delay, a backup launch opportunity is available roughly 24 hours later.
Based on the Spacebus-Neo-200 fully electric satellite bus, Satria, which was built by Thales Alenia Space, has a mass of roughly 5,000 kilograms and an on-orbit lifespan of roughly 15 years. The satellite is operated by Satelit Nusantara Tiga and will provide 90,000 schools, 40,000 hospitals, and many other residential and government sites in Indonesia with 150 gigabits per second connectivity. The satellite has two deployable solar arrays and batteries to power the spacecraft during the lunar night.
The booster supporting this mission is B1067-12, which has previously supported CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat-5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Hotbird 13G, O3b mPOWER 1 and 2, and four Starlink missions. Following launch, the booster will land on SpaceX’s autonomous spaceport drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was tugged roughly 600 kilometers in the Atlantic Ocean by Doug. Additionally, Doug will attempt recovery of both fairing halves ~45 minutes after launch.
| HR/MIN/SEC | Satria Launch Sequence |
|---|---|
| 00:01:14 | Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket) |
| 00:02:33 | 1st stage main engine cutoff (MECO) |
| 00:02:37 | 1st and 2nd stages separate |
| 00:02:44 | 2nd stage engine starts (SES-1) |
| 00:03:30 | Fairing deployment |
| 00:06:33 | 1st stage entry burn starts |
| 00:06:54 | 1st stage entry burn ends |
| 00:08:10 | 2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO-1) |
| 00:08:28 | 1st stage landing burn start |
| 00:08:39 | 1st stage landing |
| 00:27:40 | 2nd stage engine starts (SES-2) |
| 00:28:36 | 2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO-2) |
| 00:36:47 | PSN SATRIA deploys |
Chang Zheng 6 – Unknown Payload
On Tuesday, June 20 at 03:25 UTC, China is expected to launch a currently unknown payload atop a Chang Zheng 6 (CZ-6) rocket. This launch, lifting off from Launch Complex 16 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China, will mark 2023’s 92nd orbital launch attempt and the CZ-6’s 13th total launch and first of the year.
The Chinese state authorities have yet to confirm the launch vehicle and payload, so both could change before launch.
United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) first mission of 2023 is scheduled to launch on June 21, 2023, at 3:29 AM EDT (07:29 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 37 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Delta IV Heavy will likely place a classified satellite into geostationary Earth orbit, on a mission called NROL-68.
ULA’s artwork for the NROL-68 mission. (Credit: ULA)
This launch was originally scheduled for April 20, 2023. However, the flight was delayed due to a flight valve that exhibited off-nominal behavior; the valve was later replaced, clearing ULA to proceed with the launch. Due to the classified nature of this mission, the purpose and details of the spacecraft are unknown.
Ending the week, SpaceX will launch its Starlink Group 5-12 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket is expected to lift off on Wednesday, June 21 at 10:36 PM PDT (05:36 UTC on June 22), placing 47 Starlink v1.5 internet communication satellites into an elliptical low-Earth orbit at 43.0 degrees.
This launch will be the first West Coast launch targeting Starlink’s second-generation constellation; in the coming months, the Starlink satellites will raise their orbits to a 530-kilometer orbit inclined at 43.00 degrees. It is expected that this will be the fifth-to-last launch of Starlink v1.5 satellites, with SpaceX focusing on its newer, more powerful Starlink v2 Mini satellites. These v2 satellites will also be used to replace the aging v1.0 satellites in Starlink shell one, which began launching in 2019.
Additionally, in recent research by Mallama et al., it was discovered that SpaceX’s efforts to reduce impacts on ground-based astronomers have been successful: despite Starlink v2 Mini’s larger size, the satellites are fainter in the sky than Starlink v1.0 and v1.5 satellites. It was noted that the Starlink v2 Mini satellites are bright during orbit raising and initial operations, but satellites in their operational orbits place their solar panels edge-on, resulting in observers being unable to see large portions of the solar array illuminated by the sun.
Starlink v2 Mini satellites magnitude data. (Credit: Mallama et al.)
This launch will take the number of Starlink satellites launched to 4,642, of which 4,314 will be on orbit. Out of these, 3,622 are in their operational orbits.
Following launch, the currently unknown booster will land atop the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, which was tugged downrange by Scorpius. SpaceX’s multi-purpose recovery vessel GO Beyond will attempt to recover both fairing halves and will provide drone ship support for this mission.
This mission will mark SpaceX’s 43rd launch of 2023–a cadence that if sticks will result in roughly 90 launches this calendar year.
(Lead image: Electron’s payload fairing for “The Beat Goes On” mission. Credit: Rocket Lab)
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