SpaceX se pripravlja na prvo od štirih izstrelitev skupnih prevozov 'Transporterja' letos

Zaradi razcveta podjetja za izstrelitev malih satelitov naj bi SpaceX letos podvojil kadenco namenskih misij s skupno vožnjo, začenši z vzletom rakete Falcon 9 v četrtek iz Cape Canaveral s 105 vesoljskimi plovili za stranke v 20 državah.

A 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket is awaiting launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 10:25:39 a.m. EST (1525:39 GMT) Thursday.

SpaceX has a 29-minute launch window Thursday, and forecasters predict a 70% chance of favorable conditions for liftoff. The primary weather concerns are associated with cloudiness that could violate the U.S. Space Force’s range weather constraints.

The Falcon 9 will be powered by a reusable first stage flown on nine prior missions, beginning with SpaceX’s first launch to carry astronauts — NASA’s Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission — in May 2020. For its 10th launch, the booster will head southeast Cape Canaveral, then turn south to fly parallel to the east coast of Florida, taking aim on a polar, sun-synchronous orbit.

Cilindrična pospeševalna stopnja, brazgotinasta s temnimi ostanki izpušnih plinov od devetih prejšnjih izstrelitev in pristankov, bo ugasnila svojih devet motorjev Merlin pri T+plus 2 minutah in 19 sekundah. Zgorevanje "boost-back" z uporabo treh motorjev rakete bo izničilo nadzvočno hitrost navzdol prve stopnje, kar ji bo omogočilo, da obrne smer in se vrne na Cape Canaveral za pristanek približno osem minut in pol po izstrelitvi.

Four landing legs will extend from the base of the rocket as it descends toward Landing Zone 1, one of SpaceX’s two rocket landing pads at the military launch station.

SpaceX običajno pristane s pospeševalniki Falcon 9 na ladjah z brezpilotnimi letali na misijah, ki prevažajo težek tovor v vesolje, ali na poletih, ki vlečejo tovor v visokogorske orbite.

Pri izstrelitvah z lažjim tovorom ima ojačevalnik dovolj rezerve pogonskega goriva, da se obrne z uporabo povratnega izgorevanja takoj po ločitvi stopnje. To bo veljalo za začetek v četrtek.

SpaceX’s upper stage, meanwhile, will fire its single Merlin engine for six minutes to reach a parking orbit as it flies over the Florida Straits, Cuba, and the Caribbean Sea. After coasting over Antarctica, the second stage will reignite its engine for a brief two-second firing at T+plus 55 minutes to reach the mission’s planned orbit to begin a 28-minute sequence of satellite deployments.

Prvi satelitski tovor misije se bo ločil od nosilne enote več kot 59 minut po misiji. Zadnji tovor bo izpuščen ob T+plus 1 uro in 27 minut.

The launch of SpaceX’s third “Transporter” rideshare mission Thursday follows two similar multi-payload flights arranged by SpaceX last year.

The first mission, Transporter 1, deployed 143 small satellites in January 2021. The Transporter 2 launch in June carried 88 small spacecraft, but exceeded the weight of the payloads launched on Transporter 1.

The Transporter 3 mission also marks the fourth launch from Cape Canaveral since August 2020 to fly on a southern trajectory and target a polar orbit. Before 2020, the most recent polar orbit launch from Florida’s Space Coast was in 1969.

Most U.S. launchers flying on polar orbit missions have typically departed from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, which offers southerly flight paths over the Pacific Ocean. Launches toward polar orbits from Cape Canaveral require “dog-leg” maneuvers, or turns, to avoid flying over South Florida.

SpaceX announced its small satellite rideshare launch service in 2019. After the first two Transporter missions in 2021, SpaceX intends to launch as many as four dedicated ridehsare flights on Falcon 9 rockets this year, doubling the rate of Transporter launches from about one every six months to one every three-to-four months.

Obstaja veliko povpraševanje po storitvi zagona skupne vožnje. Več strank SpaceX je reklo, da je cena za režo na misiji Transporter neprimerljiva v industriji izstrelitev.

Na svoji spletni strani SpaceX pravi, da strankam zaračuna le 1 milijon dolarjev za izstrelitev koristnega tovora 440 funtov (200 kilogramov) na namenskem poletu s skupno vožnjo v sončno sinhrono orbito. Cena je omogočena z znižanjem stroškov zaradi ponovne uporabe strojne opreme rakete Falcon 9.

Podjetja, kot so Exolaunch s sedežem v Berlinu, italijanski posrednik za izstrelitev D-Orbit in Spaceflight v Seattlu, so rezervirala pristanišča na skladu koristnega tovora Transporterja 3, nato pa to zmogljivost razdelila med več malih satelitskih strank.

D-Orbit has its own satellite carrier mounted on the Transporter 3 payload stack. The company’s ION SCV004 vehicle will separate from the Falcon 9 rocket to later release its own satellite passengers.

The payloads on-board the Transporter 3 mission range from smaller than a soda can to the size washing machine.

The biggest of the group is the Ukrainian Sich 2-1 satellite, a 375-pound (170-kilogram) government-funded Earth-imaging spacecraft delayed for years by political and economic turmoil in Ukraine, largely driven by the country’s conflict with Russia.

Satelit Sich 2-1, imenovan tudi Sich 2-30, je izdelalo ukrajinsko podjetje Yuzhnoye. Vsebuje slikovno obremenitev srednje ločljivosti za fotografiranje zemeljskega površja v vidnih in bližnjih infrardečih valovnih dolžinah ter zbira podatke, uporabne pri urbanističnem načrtovanju, upravljanju pridelkov in spremljanju okolja.

Radar remote sensing satellites are also part of the Transporter 3 payload package.

Two satellites reach for Finland’s ICEYE and the U.S. company Capella are stowed inside the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload shroud. Both companies are building out fleets of small satellites using radar beams to regularly map the world’s land masses, oceans, and ice sheets.

Radarsko slikanje ne zagotavlja toliko barv ali podrobnosti kot optično daljinsko zaznavanje, vendar imajo radarski sateliti prednost, da so občutljivi podnevi ali ponoči in v vseh vremenskih razmerah.

Slike iz ICEYE in Capella so dovolj ostre, da lahko analitiki izberejo ladje, zgradbe in druge elemente na zemeljskem površju, manjše od 1 metra (3 čevljev).

ICEYE’s two new satellites join 13 others already in the company’s constellation. Each satellite weighs about 187 pounds (85 kilograms), and carries a radar antenna that will unfold once it’s in orbit.

Capella, a competitor to ICEYE, is also adding two satellites to its fleet with the Transporter 3 mission. The new additions, each about 220 pounds (100 kilograms) at launch, will join five satellites already in Capella’s commercial fleet providing radar imagery to the U.S. military and other customers.

Another rdar remote sensing company, Umbra, also has a satellite on-board the Transporter 3 mission. Umbra’s second satellite follows a first spacecraft launched on Transporter 2 last year.

Tako kot satelita ICEYE in Capella bo tudi 143-funtni (65-kilogramski) satelit Umbra po ločitvi od rakete Falcon 9 razvil radarsko anteno. Umbra prav tako gradi floto satelitov, za katere pravi, da bodo sposobni zajemati radarske slike najvišje ločljivosti katere koli komercialne konstelacije na samo 6 palcev (15 centimetrov).

The Transporter 3 mission is also hauling 44 small SuperDove optical imaging satellites into orbit for Planet, which owns the industry’s largest fleet of Earth observation spacecraft. The San Francisco-based company said it will have more than 240 satellites in orbit with the new flock of SuperDoves taking off Thursday.

Sateliti SuperDove so veliki približno kot škatla za čevlje in tvorijo hrbtenico Planetovega ozvezdja, ki vsak dan preslika vse Zemljine kopenske mase. "Ta zmogljivost brez primere zagotavlja našim strankam dnevne podatke o zemeljskih virih in globalnih dogodkih," je družba zapisala v posodobitvi, objavljeni na svoji spletni strani.

The Transporter 3 mission is the first for Planet and SpaceX under a new multi-launch agreement signed last year, cinching SpaceX’s position as Planet’s “go-to launch provider” through the end of 2025.

Other satellites on the Transporter 3 launch include eight “Tevel” CubeSats built by students in Israel. Led by the Herzliya Science Center, the Tevel satellites will support amateur radio communications in low Earth orbit.

There are five small CubeSats on the mission for Spire Global, which operates a constellation of smallsats collecting weather and ship tracking data. Four CubeSats are on-board for Kepler Communications, a Canadian company deploying a data relay satellite network.

Three MDASat nanosatellites from South Africa will also launch on the Transporter 3 mission. They are part of a nearly $2 million government-backed project to detect, locate, and track maritime traffic near South African coastal zones.

Other companies with satellites on the Transporter 3 mission include Sen, a British firm launching its first CubeSat spacecraft in a planned fleet to provide high-definition video of Earth. There’s also a CubeSat from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, which intends to use a color-sensitive hyperspectral imager to monitor oceans.

Lunasonde, a company based in Tucson, Arizona, is launching the first satellite in its planned Gossamer constellation designed for subsurface imaging, with the ability to help locate underground water, mineral deposits, and other resources.

SpaceX’s Transporter 3 launch is also carrying a small satellite from the French startup UnSeenLabs, which is in the maritime surveillance business. A CubeSat from Dubai will launch to help officials monitor and manage the city’s electricity and water networks,

CubeSat z imenom NuX 1, ki je v lasti NuSpace v Singapurju, bo prikazal tehnologije prenosa podatkov in potisnik z manjšo močjo Hallovega učinka. CubeSat iz Tajvana, imenovan IRIS A, ima podoben namen predstavitve komunikacijske tehnologije.

Another spacecraft to be deployed from the Falcon 9 rocket is the ION SCV004 CubeSat carrier, owned by the Italian company D-orbit, which itself will release six nanosatellites after separating from the rocket. The payloads on D-Orbit’s carrier include four CubeSats from the Polish company SatRevolution and the VZLUSat 2 technology demonstration satellite from the Czech Aerospace Research Center.

A CubeSat payload from the University of Southern California, named Dodona, will also be packed onto D-Orbit’s ION satellite carrier.

Satelit Dodona nosi instrumente in programsko opremo za misijo La Jument podjetja Lockheed Martin, ki bo oblikovalcem vesoljskih plovil pomagala razviti tehnologije umetne inteligence in strojnega učenja.

Instrumenti na krovu vključujejo optične in infrardeče kamere, mehko definiran tovor za prikaz zmožnosti zaznavanja kibernetskih groženj v orbiti in aplikacijo, ki satelitskemu računalniku omogoča samodejno izboljšanje kakovosti slike, so sporočili iz Lockheed Martina.

The smallest satellites buttoned up for launch on the Transporter 3 mission are so-called PocketQubes, tiny satellites that weigh between 1 and 2 pounds.

According to a tally of the payloads provided by SpaceX and mission customers, there are 21 PocketQubes on the Transporter 3 launch for customers in Spain, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, Nepal, and the United States.

Njihove naloge segajo od izobraževanja in usposabljanja bodočih inženirjev do testiranja tehnologije, komunikacij in daljinskega zaznavanja.

Nekateri sateliti, dodeljeni za izstrelitev Transporterja 3, so bili umaknjeni iz misije, potem ko je vesoljski vlačilec Sherpa, ki ga je dobavil posrednik za skupno vožnjo Spaceflight, decembra med obdelavo pred poletom na Cape Canaveralu utrpel uhajanje pogonskega goriva.

Vlačilec Sherpa je bil odstranjen iz sklada koristnega tovora Transporterja 3, sateliti, ki naj bi jih poslal, pa bodo preusmerjeni v druge misije, so sporočili iz Spaceflighta.

Enega od prizadetih CubeSat-ov, VZLUSat 2 iz Češke republike, je bilo mogoče preoblikovati za vožnjo na napravi D-Orbit ob isti izstrelitvi Transporterja 3.

E-pošta Avtor.

Sledite Stephenu Clarku na Twitterju: @ StephenClark1.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2022/01/12/spacex-preps-for-first-of-four-transporter-rideshare-launches-this-year/