United Launch Alliance (ULA) is about to fly only its second Atlas V of 2023, as Amazon’s subsidiary Kuiper Systems LLC is finally about to place its first Kuiper demonstration satellites into orbit. This week also features a launch from China, a Falcon 9 Starlink launch, a Virgin Galactic suborbital tourist flight, and one of the final flights for the original Vega small satellite launcher.
The Project Kuiper Protoflight is going to be the first flight of Amazon’s Kuiper broadband satellite constellation, which is a direct competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink. Just hours before the scheduled Kuiper launch, Virgin Galactic is planning to fly the first Pakistani to the edge of space along with five other people on a suborbital flight aboard VSS Unity.
Yaogan 36-3 liftoff from Xichang. (Credit: CNSA)
Chang Zheng-2D Y84 | Yaogan 39-03 A, B, C
The first launch of this week will be from China. A Chang Zheng-2D launch vehicle is reportedly scheduled to fly from LC-3 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China, with the launch being set for Thursday, Oct. 5 at 00:24 UTC. Three Yaogan military reconnaissance satellites are reportedly on board, headed for low-Earth orbit. This would be the ninth CZ-2D flight of 2023 and the 81st mission of the type overall.
View of a stack of 21 Starlink v2 Mini satellites before being enclosed in their fairing. (Credit: SpaceX)
The second launch scheduled for this week is Falcon 9 B1076-8 flying a batch of 22 Starlink v2 Mini satellites from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch is scheduled for 10:45 PM EDT on Wednesday, Oct. 4 (02:45 UTC on Thursday, Oct. 5) and will fly a trajectory to the southeast and inclined 43 degrees to the Equator, if the weather — which is only 50% favorable for launch — holds up.
The barge Just Read the Instructions is 630 kilometers out in the Atlantic to support the booster recovery. This will be the first SpaceX orbital launch this month, the 70th SpaceX orbital mission of 2023, and the 67th Falcon 9 launch so far this year if all goes as planned. In addition, B1076 will be coming off a turnaround of only 26 days.
VSS Unity ignites its hybrid rocket motor for its short trip to space on Unity 25 (center) just after being dropped by VMS Eve (left of center). (Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)
Virgin Galactic VSS Unity | Galactic 04
On Friday, Oct. 6, Virgin Galactic is scheduled to fly the Galactic 04 tourist mission on a suborbital trajectory from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Typically launches are done in the morning hours when winds are calmer, though no specific time has yet been set. Six people will be on board, and the flight is set to go to a similar altitude as other powered flights to the edge of space with the SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity — 80 to 90 kilometers.
Galactic 04 will be commanded by Kelly Latimer, with former Shuttle astronaut CJ Sturckow as the pilot in the right-hand seat. Virgin Galactic lead astronaut trainer Beth Moses will be making her sixth spaceflight past the unofficial “McDowell Line” at 80 kilometers that has been used as the point where the US Air Force and FAA awarded astronaut wings.
The Federation Aeronautique Internationale recognizes 100 kilometers as the “Karman line” where space begins, but astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell authored a published scientific paper that states that there is no significant difference between the space environment at 80 kilometers and at 100 kilometers altitude above Earth.
Mission patch for Galactic 04. (Credit: Virgin Galactic)
The passengers on this flight are Ron Rosano, Namira Salim, and Trevor Beattie. Rosano is a NASA Solar System Ambassador from the San Francisco Bay Area, while Salim, a Karachi-born woman, is set to become the first Pakistani to fly into space as defined by the “McDowell Line.” Beattie, born in Birmingham, England, is a British advertising executive.
Galactic 04 would be Virgin Galactic’s fifth flight to the edge of space this year and the sixth flight of VSS Unity in 2023. In addition, this flight would be the tenth crewed spaceflight of 2023, with three Crew Dragons, one Soyuz, and one Shenzhou mission also flying human beings to space.
The Project Kuiper Protoflight payloads in their fairing (Credit: ULA)
Atlas V 501 | Project Kuiper Protoflight
The Atlas V mission, known as the Project Kuiper Protoflight, is also scheduled for launch on Friday, Oct. 6, at 2:00 PM EDT (18:00 UTC) from SLC-41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This mission will use the 501 variant of the veteran launch vehicle. The Atlas V 501 uses the core, outfitted with kerosene and liquid oxygen burning a Russian-built RD-180 engine, without any solid rocket boosters, along with a five-meter fairing.
The Project Kuiper Protoflight Atlas V will be carrying two prototype satellites for the upcoming Kuiper broadband satellite constellation, which needs to place half of its 3,236 satellites in orbit before July 2026. These satellites, known as Kuipersat-1 and Kuipersat-2, are set to be placed into a circular 500-kilometer low-Earth orbit inclined 30 degrees to the Equator.
Kuipersat-1 and Kuipersat-2 would finally reach orbit over five years after SpaceX launched its prototype Starlink satellites Tintin A and B. The Kuiper constellation, which got its name from the Kuiper Belt of objects orbiting beyond Neptune, is planned to provide broadband to unserved or underserved regions, and like Starlink, will be marketed to consumers.
Schematic of the Atlas V 500 series. (Credit: ULA)
A good portion of Kuiper’s satellites are planned to fly on ULA Atlas V or Vulcan rockets, while Blue Origin and Arianespace have also received contracts to fly these satellites. A shareholder lawsuit has been filed by a pension fund that believes the Amazon board of directors acted in bad faith and did not properly consider flying the satellites aboard SpaceX and its Falcon 9.
This is only the 20th commercial mission for ULA, which has flown many national security and NASA missions aboard its rockets over nearly two decades. The Kuiper Protoflight mission will also be the eighth and final flight of the Atlas V 501 configuration. All future Atlas V flights will involve the 551 or N22 configurations. The N22 will be used for Starliner missions while the 551 configuration will be used by eight Project Kuiper missions, USSF-51, and ViaSat-3 EMEA.
The Arianespace VV23 mission logo (Credit: Arianespace)
Arianespace Vega VV23 | THEOS-2, FORMOSAT-7R/TRITON, SSMS no. 5
Friday, Oct. 6, is currently set to be a very busy day in spaceflight. Not only are the Project Kuiper Protoflight and Galactic 04 missions flying, but one of the final missions of the original Vega rocket is scheduled for that day. VV23 is planned to launch into a sun-synchronous polar orbit from ELV-1 at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, on Oct. 6 at 10:36 PM Kourou time (01:36 UTC on Saturday, Oct. 7).
(Lead image: The Project Kuiper Protoflight Atlas V 501 with its payload installed. Credit: ULA)
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