SpaceX launched its 61st and ultimate mission of 2022 Thursday evening from California, putting an Israeli Earth-imaging satellite tv for pc into orbit and tying a 1980 file for essentially the most profitable flights by a rocket household in a single 12 months.
The corporate’s final launch of the 12 months delivered the EROS C3 Earth statement satellite tv for pc into a peculiar retrograde orbit after blastoff from Area Launch Advanced 4-East at Vandenberg Area Pressure Base, California. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket took off at 11:38 p.m. PST Thursday (2:38 a.m. EST; 0738 GMT) Thursday, powered by a column of fiery exhaust from 9 kerosene-fueled engines.
The Falcon 9 headed southwest from Vandenberg, arcing over the Pacific Ocean earlier than shutting down its 9 Merlin engines practically two-and-a-half minutes into the mission. The primary stage indifferent, flipped round to fly tail first, and reignited three of its engines for a “increase again” burn to reverse course and return to a vertical touchdown at Vandenberg.
Landing of the booster at Touchdown Zone 4, only a quarter-mile (400 meters) from the Falcon 9 launch pad, occurred greater than eight minutes after liftoff, finishing the eleventh flight of the primary stage, designated B1061 in SpaceX’s fleet.
The Falcon 9’s second stage fired a single Merlin engine, fitted with an growth nozzle for in-space firings, for greater than seven minutes to put the EROS C3 satellite tv for pc into orbit. The higher stage deployed the EROS C3 satellite tv for pc practically quarter-hour into the mission, and SpaceX declared success.
SpaceX launched the $186 million EROS C3 mission for the Israeli firm ImageSat Worldwide, which offers intelligence imagery for the Israeli army and different clients all over the world. U.S. army monitoring knowledge indicated the Falcon 9 rocket launched the EROS C3 spacecraft into an orbit greater than 300 miles (about 500 kilometers) above Earth, at an inclination of 139.4 levels to the equator.
The mission focused an uncommon retrograde orbit, during which the spacecraft flies in the other way of Earth’s rotation. Lots of Israel’s army spy satellites fly in the same orbit, a consequence of Israel’s geography that require rockets launched from Israeli territory to fly to the west — towards the rotation of Earth — over the Mediterranean Sea to keep away from over-flying populated areas.
Falcon 9’s first stage booster has returned to Touchdown Zone 4 at Vandenberg Area Pressure Base, California. This completes the eleventh flight to area for this booster, designated B1061.
It’s the a hundred and sixtieth Falcon booster touchdown general.https://t.co/adKfJheEUe pic.twitter.com/UCunoJXaPj
— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) December 30, 2022
The EROS C3 satellite tv for pc was constructed by Israel Aerospace Industries, and is predicated on IAI’s Optsat 3000 satellite tv for pc platform with a launch mass of about 880 kilos, or 400 kilograms. ImageSat Worldwide, or ISI, signed a contract with IAI to assemble the EROS C3 satellite tv for pc in December 2017.
IAI stated in a press launch that floor controllers established communications with the EROS C3 satellite tv for pc after launch. The satellite tv for pc is fitted with an electro-optical digital camera provided by Elbit Programs, an Israeli protection firm.
In monetary statements, ISI describes EROS C3 as an Optsat 3000-class satellite tv for pc with “very-very excessive decision and multi spectral capabilities.”
ISI says its constellation contains two different EROS C-class satellites, EROS C1 and EROS C2, already in orbit. These two satellites had been “commercialized” by ISI in 2021, after launch by a separate operator, presumably as a part of the the Israeli authorities’s Ofeq spy satellite tv for pc satellite tv for pc fleet, or by one other Israeli firm. ISI stated in a monetary prospectus earlier this 12 months that EROS C1 and EROS C2 are owned by a 3rd celebration, however ISI has unique entry to industrial imagery from the satellites
EROS C3 will be part of ISI’s fleet as a commercially-operated satellite tv for pc from the beginning, however the high-resolution photos from the spacecraft will seemingly be utilized by ISI’s army and authorities clients, which embody a nexus of Israeli shoppers and others all over the world.
ISI says EROS C3 has comparable imaging capabilities as EROS C1 and EROS C2. The corporate finally plans to function a fleet of six “military-grade” imaging satellites, known as the EROS NG constellation, with EROS C-class electro-optical and EROSAR artificial aperture radar capabilities.
“EROS C serves because the spine of the EROS NG constellation,” ISI says on its web site. “By way of ISI’s superior floor management section, it permits protection and intelligence organizations to conduct operations underneath full confidentiality and knowledge safety, in addition to unbiased mission execution, with no preemption/shutter management.”
ISI stated earlier this 12 months it deliberate to enter right into a contract to construct one other electro-optical satellite tv for pc, EROS C4, for launch in 2026.
The EROS C-class satellite tv for pc have a finest decision of about 1 foot, or 30 centimeters, in keeping with ISI. Coloration photographs from EROS C3 will include a decision of about 24 inches, or 60 centimeters. That places EROS C3 in the identical class because the Maxar’s WorldView industrial imaging satellites and Airbus’s Pleiades Neo constellation.
The EROS C satellites are follow-ups to ISI’s earlier optical imaging satellites, EROS A and EROS B, launched in 2000 and 2006.
ISI stated in a monetary prospectus earlier this 12 months that the launch of EROS C3 will mark a “leap ahead within the satellite tv for pc companies that the corporate will have the ability to present to its clients,” together with the flexibility to realize a bigger foothold within the civilian market.
“Within the firm’s estimation, the EROS C3 satellite tv for pc will likely be one of many three industrial (optical imaging) satellites with essentially the most superior capabilities on this planet,” ISI stated.
The launch of EROS C3 got here two days after SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with one other batch of 54 Starlink web satellites. The 2 vacation missions capped a file 12 months for SpaceX, with 61 flights from the corporate’s two launch pads in Florida and single launch facility in California.
SpaceX launched 31 missions in 2021, and logged 26 Falcon rocket launches in 2020.
13 of the launches in 2022 lifted off from Vandenberg Area Pressure Base, 19 SpaceX rockets launched from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Area Heart, and 29 SpaceX missions departed from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Area Pressure Station.
There was one flight of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, a robust launcher made by combining three Falcon 9 rocket boosters collectively to supply greater than 5 million kilos of thrust. The Nov. 1 mission — the primary Falcon Heavy flight since 2019 — orbited a pair of payloads for the U.S. Area Pressure. The opposite 60 SpaceX missions used Falcon 9 rockets.
Falcon 9 launched the @ImageSatIntl EROS C-3 mission to orbit in a single day, finishing SpaceX’s 61st and ultimate launch of 2022 — practically double our file of 31 launches set final 12 months pic.twitter.com/KTQydZvoYC
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 30, 2022
The 60 Falcon 9 launches in 2022 set a file for essentially the most flights of a single sort of orbital-class rocket in a single 12 months.
“On common, SpaceX launched each 6 days from one among our three websites with 92% of missions accomplished with flight-proven first stage rocket boosters, and Falcon 9 now holds the world file for many launches of a single car sort in a single 12 months,” SpaceX tweeted after the launch of the EROS C3 mission Thursday.
General, SpaceX’s Falcon rocket household tied the variety of profitable launches achieved by the Soviet Union’s R-7 rocket household in 1980. Bolstered by ballooning Chilly Conflict-era army budgets, a number of variants of the R-7 rocket — the Soyuz, Molniya, and Vostok launcher sorts — collectively efficiently launched 61 occasions that 12 months. There have been two different launches of the R-7 rocket household that did not put their payloads into the correct orbit, for a complete of 63 launch makes an attempt.
SpaceX recovered each Falcon rocket booster that tried to land in 2022, notching 60 rocket landings on drone ships and onshore in Florida and California. The 2 facet boosters on the only Falcon Heavy mission in 2022 returned to efficiently land at Cape Canaveral, whereas the core stage of the Falcon Heavy was expended on function. SpaceX additionally deliberately disposed of two Falcon 9 boosters on a pair of missions in November, on the request of their clients.
SpaceX launched three astronaut missions to the Worldwide Area Station aboard the corporate’s fleet of Dragon crew capsules in 2022. Two of the flights delivered long-duration crews to the advanced underneath contract to NASA, and the opposite crew flight was launched for Axiom Area, a Houston-based firm. The 17-day Axiom flight marked the primary absolutely industrial personal astronaut mission to the Worldwide Area Station.
Thirty-four of SpaceX’s 61 missions in 2022 had been primarily devoted to lofting satellites for the corporate’s personal Starlink web community. In whole, SpaceX rockets deployed 2,001 payloads into orbit in 2022, together with Starlink satellites and payloads on three Transporter smallsat rideshare missions.
SpaceX additionally achieved milestones in rocket reuse in 2022. The corporate launched and landed a Falcon 9 booster for a file fifteenth time Dec. 17. Going into 2022, SpaceX had launched a Falcon 9 booster not more than 11 occasions.
SpaceX goals to launch as many as 100 missions in 2023, together with the primary orbital take a look at flight of the corporate’s next-generation Starship rocket from South Texas.
Email the writer.
Comply with Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.
