Launch Roundup Arianespace launching Ariane 5 final flight; SpaceX to fly
one of last Starlink v1.5 flights

Date:
Mon, 03 Jul 2023 17:18:28 +0000

Description:
Three launches are currently planned for the week of July 2 through July 9. The The post Launch Roundup Arianespace launching Ariane 5 final flight; SpaceX to fly one of last Starlink v1.5 flights appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com .

FULL STORY ======================================================================

Three launches are currently planned for the week of July 2 through July 9. The first one is on Americas birthday, Tuesday, July 4, but is a European rocket making its 117th and final flight. Later in the week, SpaceX plans two Falcon 9 flights with Starlink payloads on Friday, July 7 and Sunday, July 9. These flights will be the 98th, 99th, and 100th orbital launch attempts of 2023.

Arianespace flight VA261 is the final launch of Ariane 5, after a storied career that featured numerous dual communication satellite launches, the Rosetta, BepiColombo, and Juice probes to the Solar System, ATV cargo flights to the ISS, and the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.

VA261 will be carrying the Syracuse 4B and Heinrich Hertz satellites, while the Starlink 5-13 mission from Vandenberg SFB, California is to be one of the last flights using Starlink v1.5 satellites before the v2 Mini takes their place on all Falcon 9 Starlink launches.

The next Starlink flight after 5-13 will be flying v2 Mini satellites, aboard Starlink 6-5 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The last scheduled v1.5 satellite launch is currently scheduled for July 12 aboard Starlink 5-15,
also from Florida.

The Syracuse 4B satellite during pre-launch testing. (Credit: Thales Alenia Space)

Ariane 5 VA261 Syracuse 4B and Heinrich Hertz

The Ariane 5 swan song, the second Ariane 5 and Arianespace launch of the year, is scheduled for July 4 at 21:30 UTC from ELA-3 at Kourou, French Guiana. The rocket, now ready after a delay to replace pyrotechnic lines,
will be flying the French militarys Syracuse 4B communications satellite and the German DLRs Heinrich Hertz satellite. Both satellites will go to geostationary transfer orbit.

The Syracuse 4B satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence
and Space, is the latest communications satellite to fly for the French armed forces. The 3,850-kilogram satellite is equipped with military-grade Ka-band and X-band communications systems and is resistant to cyber attacks, electromagnetic pulse attacks, and jamming.

The Heinrich Hertz satellite, also known as H2 Sat, was built by a consortium led by OHB-System AG and contracted by the German space agency DLR and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. The
3,450-kilogram satellite, based on OHBs small geostationary satellite bus, is intended to test new communications technologies and to provide telecommunications services for the German Bundeswehr (armed forces).

The Ariane 5s first launch took place in 1996, although it failed due to a computer error. With the VA261 flight, the Ariane 5 will have completed its career after 27 years of flying, including 25 years of successful operational missions after its ill-fated first flight and the partially successful second flight in 1997. Falcon 9 deploys its payload of Starlink satellites. (Credit: Mack Crawford for NSF/L2)

Falcon 9 Starlink Group 5-13

The Starlink 5-13 mission is scheduled to launch from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California on Friday, July 7 at 12:30 PM PDT (19:30 UTC). The booster to fly on this mission has not been disclosed yet. This flight will start off the second half of 2023 for SpaceX and become the 43rd Falcon
9 launch and 45th orbital launch overall, not counting Starships flight test
for SpaceX in 2023.

Starlink 5-13 will be carrying somewhere around 50 satellites to orbit, and will be the penultimate Falcon 9 flight carrying v1.5 satellites. The flight will be going into a 229 by 339 kilometer initial orbit at 43 degrees inclination, while the booster is set to land on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific.

The satellites will be moved in the coming months to their operational location, which is a 530-kilometer circular low-Earth orbit. Although these satellites are Starlink v1.5 spacecraft, they are being launched as part of the systems second generation constellation. The first generation Starlink constellation, consisting of v1.0 and v1.5 satellites, filled out shells one and four, and largely filled out shells two and three. View of a stack of 21 Starlink v2 Mini satellites before being enclosed in their fairing. (Credit: SpaceX)

Falcon 9 Starlink Group 6-5

The Starlink 6-5 flight is scheduled to launch from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Sunday, July 9, to finish out the week. Launch time is scheduled for 3:15 AM EDT (07:15 UTC), and this flight will be the 44th Falcon 9 launch and 46th SpaceX orbital launch overall for 2023.

Starlink 6-5 will be carrying around 20 v2 Mini satellites to an initial
orbit of 298 by 340 kilometers at 43 degrees inclination, while the booster will land on Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic. The booster for this mission is not known yet. After the launch, the satellites will be moved in the coming months to their operational location, which is a 530-kilometer circular low-Earth orbit.

All future Falcon 9 Starlink launches after this month are slated to carry
the v2 Mini satellites to make further progress on filling out the second generation constellation while work continues on readying Starship for future flights, and producing the full-sized v2 satellites. Artists impression of Starlink v2 satellites being deployed from Starship. (Credit: SpaceX)

The v2 Mini satellites mass around 800 kilograms each, as opposed to around 307 kilograms per v1.5 satellite. This means that each Falcon 9 launch can accommodate fewer satellites than on first generation launches. However, the v2 Mini can provide four times the capacity of the earlier v1.0 and v1.5 satellites, enabled by a more powerful phased array antenna.

In addition, the v2 Mini also uses the E-band for backhaul and features new argon-fueled Hall-effect thrusters that generate more thrust and specific impulse than the previous generations krypton-fueled Hall-effect thrusters. Hall-effect thrusters are ion thrusters that use an electric field to accelerate propellant.

SpaceX has been authorized to launch up to 7,500 satellites for its second generation Starlink constellation. Once Starship becomes mature enough to launch satellites, the full-sized Starlink v2 satellites, massing roughly 1,200 kilograms each, and having an order of magnitude more bandwidth than
the first generation, are expected to be launched in large numbers.

(Lead image: A Falcon 9 stands at SLC-4E at the Vandenberg Space Force Base. Credit: Jack Beyer for NSF)

The post Launch Roundup Arianespace launching Ariane 5 final flight; SpaceX to fly one of last Starlink v1.5 flights appeared first on
NASASpaceFlight.com .



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Link to news story: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2023/07/launch-roundup-july_2_9/


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