SpaceX is about to launch a GPS satellite tv for pc to orbit on Wednesday morning (Jan. 18), and you’ll watch the liftoff dwell.
A Falcon 9 booster from SpaceX is scheduled to ship GPS III House Car 06, a sophisticated World Positioning System satellite tv for pc, to house on Wednesday at 7:10 a.m. EST (1210 GMT) from House Launch Complicated 40 at Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station in Florida. Watch it dwell right here at House.com courtesy of SpaceX or directly via the company (opens in new tab).
The launch will probably be SpaceX’s fourth in 2023 and, as ordinary, the primary stage of the Falcon 9 will try a touchdown roughly eight minutes after launch.
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This GPS satellite is known as after Amelia Earhart, a outstanding feminine aviation pioneer who was the primary non-male pilot to fly throughout the Atlantic Ocean. This launch would be the sixth of the GPS III sequence; the final one, named after Neil Armstrong, launched in June 2021.
The satellite tv for pc will probably be launched on behalf of the U.S. Space Force as half of a bigger push to modernize the nation’s GPS fleet. The brand new satellite tv for pc has an anticipated lifetime of 15 years and can finally type a part of a set of 32 next-generation satellites, according to its maker, Lockheed Martin (opens in new tab).
The most recent technology of GPS spacecraft has as much as 3 times higher accuracy, eight occasions enchancment in anti-jamming programs and a brand new modular design for diversifications “to raised handle altering mission wants and rising threats,” Lockheed Martin acknowledged.
The corporate says that roughly half the world’s inhabitants (or 4 billion customers) depends on GPS know-how for all the pieces from transportation to specific agriculture monitoring to utility infrastructure (a few of which makes use of GPS partly to pinpoint service areas.)
The U.S. GPS community will not be the one set of navigation satellites accessible, nonetheless. The European Union has an unbiased set often known as Galileo, Russia has GLONASS, and China has a system referred to as Beidou. Independence of GPS programs is usually raised as an essential matter of nationwide sovereignty and safety, particularly within the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why Am I Taller (opens in new tab)?” (ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a e book about house drugs. Observe her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
