To update: SpaceX now aims to launch its first 2023 Falcon Heavy rocket on Sunday, January 15 at 5:56 p.m. EST (22:56 GMT).
SpaceX’s mighty Falcon Heavy rocket will be back in action on Sunday, January 15, and you can watch the liftoff live.
A Falcon Heavy is scheduled to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Sunday at 5:56 p.m. EST (2255 GMT), a day later than previously announced, on a classified mission to the US Space Force called USSF-67.
Watch it live here on Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly through the company. We will be hosting the company webcast when the time comes.
Related: Why SpaceX hadn’t flown a Falcon Heavy rocket since 2019
Sunday’s launch will be the fifth overall for the Falcon Heavy. The rugged rocket debuted in February 2018 with a memorable test flight that sent SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster into orbit around the sun, along with a spacesuit-clad mannequin named Starman. on the driver’s seat.
The Falcon Heavy was relaunched in April 2019 and June 2019, each time sending operational satellites. But the rocket only took off in November last year, on the USSF-44 mission for the Space Force. The 40-month gap was mainly due to delays in preparing customer payloads, according to space industry analysts.
Like USSF-44, USSF-67 is a classified mission. We do know a bit about the upcoming flight though.
The main payload is a military communications satellite called Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM 2, which the Falcon Heavy will send into geostationary orbit, about 22,200 miles (35,700 kilometers) above Earth. A rideshare spacecraft called Long Duration Propulsive ESPA (LDPE)-3A is also flying Saturday, a payload adapter that can hold up to six small satellites, according to EverydayAstronaut.com (opens in a new tab).
LDPE-3A will carry five Space Force payloads on USSF-67. Among them are “two operational prototypes for enhanced situational awareness and an operational prototype encryption/encryption interface payload providing a secure space-to-ground communications capability,” Space Force officials said in a statement. press release sent by e-mail on Friday 13 January.
The Falcon Heavy consists of three modified SpaceX Falcon 9 first stages, which are strapped together. The central servomotor is surmounted by a load-bearing upper stage.
The first stages of the Falcon Heavy are reusable, like those of the Falcon 9. The two side boosters of the USSF-67 will be launched for the second time; they also flew on USSF-44, Space Force officials said. The USSF-67 base thruster has never flown before.
If all goes as planned, the two side thrusters will return to Earth shortly after liftoff on Saturday, making vertical landings at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, which sits adjacent to KSC. The center thruster will not return, instead plunging into the Atlantic Ocean.
USSF-67 is part of a busy week for SpaceX. The company also plans to launch 51 of its Starlink internet satellites into low Earth orbit atop a Falcon 9 on Ja. 19. You can also watch this mission here on Space.com.
Mike Wall is the author of “The low (opens in a new tab)(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in a new tab). Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in a new tab) or Facebook (opens in a new tab).
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