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SPACE LAUNCH REPORT
by Ed Kyle
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Recent
Space Launches
01/24/21,
15:00 UTC, Falcon 9 v1.2 w/
Transporter 1 from CC 40 to LEO/S 01/29/21, 04:47 UTC, CZ-4C w/
Yaogan 31-02 from JQ 43/94 to LEO 02/01/21, 08:15 UTC,
SQX-1 with Ark 2 from JQ to [FTO]
02/02/21, 20:45 UTC, Soyuz
2-1b w/ Lotos S1 805 from PL 43/4 to LEO 02/04/21,
06:19 UTC, Falcon 9 v1.2 w/
Starlink 1-18 from CC 40 to LEO 02/04/21, 15:36 UTC, CZ-3B/E w/
TJSW 6 from XC 3 to GTO 02/15/21, 04:45 UTC, Soyuz
2-1a w/ Progress MS-16 from TB 31/6 to LEO/ISS 02/16/21,
03:59 UTC, Falcon 9 v1.2 w/
Starlink 1-19 from CC 40 to LEO 02/20/21, 07:36 UTC,
Antares 230+ w/ Cygnus NG15
from WI 0A to LEO/ISS 02/24/21, 02:22 UTC, CZ-4C w/
Yaogan 31-03 from JQ 43/94 to LEO |
Worldwide Space Launch Box
Score
as of
02/24/21
All Orbital Launch Attempts(Failures)
2021:
15(1)
2020: 114(10)
2019: 102(5)
2018: 114(3)
Crewed Launch Attempts(Failures)
2021: 0(0)
2020: 4(0)
2019: 3(0)
2018: 4(1) |
|
CZ-4C/Yaogan 31-03
China's CZ-4C, tail number Y32, orbited the Yaogan
31-03 triplet from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center
in northwest China on February 24, 2021. Liftoff
from LC 94/43 took place at 02:22 UTC. The
three-stage hypergolic propellant-fueled rocket
boosted the satellites into roughly 1,100 km x 63.41
deg orbits. The satellites are thought to be
formation flyers that triangulate the location of
radio emitters, most likely used to track naval
ships. Yaogan 31-02 was orbited in January 2021.
Yaogan 31-01 was launched during 2018.
It was
the fourth DF-5 based CZ launch of the year.
Antares/Cygnus NG-15
The
14th Antares launch vehicle - and fourth upgraded
Antares 230+ - boosted Northrop Grumman's Cygnus
NG-15 cargo spacecraft into orbit from Wallops
Island, Virginia on February 20, 2021. Liftoff from
Pad 0A took place at 07:36:50 UTC.
Cygnus NG-15 was the 12th enhanced
Cygnus with a stretched Thales Alenia Space cargo
module and the ninth to fly on Antares. Atlas 5
rockets orbited the other three. NG-15 probably
weighed about 7,700 kg at launch, including 3,810 kg
of cargo for the International Space Station. Cygnus
NG-15 was named in honor of NASA mathematician
Katherine Johnson.
The RD-181 engines
produced 392 tonnes of thrust to power the nearly
293 tonne rocket off its pad. The Ukrainian-built
first stage burned for about 198 seconds. After
first stage shutdown, the upper composite separated
at T+204 seconds and coasted upward. The shroud and
interstage adapter separated at 234 and 239 seconds,
respectively. At about T+247 seconds the Northrop
Grumman Castor 30XL second stage motor ignited to
produce an average of about 51 tonnes of thrust
during its roughly 167 second burn. Cygnus separated
at T+532 seconds into a 180 x 360 km x 51.66 deg
orbit.
Like Antares 230, the Antares 230+
first stage is powered by two Energomash RD-181
engines in place of the AJ-26 engines that powered
the first five Antares flights. Antares 230+ uses a
stronger first stage structure to allow full-thrust
operation through much of its burn. In addition,
unneeded dry mass was stripped from the first and
second stages and a single-piece interstage was
implemented.
Starlink 1-19
SpaceX orbited another group of
60 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral on
February 16, 2020. Falcon 9 v1.2 liftoff took place
at 03:59 UTC from Space Launch Complex 40. First
stage B1059.6, performing its sixth flight, boosted
the flight during its first 2 min 32 sec. After
separating, the stage flipped and performed a
three-engine entry burn, but flames were visible
streaming from the base of the stage after the end
of the burn. The stage did not survive to perform
its planned landing on Of Course I Still Love You
parked about 630 km downrange.
The second
stage fired from 2:44 to 8:47 to reach a parking
orbit. It restarted at 45:31 for one second to reach
its roughly 250 x 280 km x 53 deg insertion orbit.
The 15.6 tonne payload separated at T+64:28.
1059.6 previously boosted CRS-19, CRS-20, the
Starlink 1-8 rideshare mission, SAOCOM-1B, and
NROL-108 during 2019-2020. It was the first loss of
a first stage in 11 months and follows 24
consecutive first stage recoveries.
Progress MS-16
Russia's
Soyuz 2.1a launched Progress MS-16 from Baikonur
Site 31 Pad 6 on February 15, 2021. Liftoff took
place at 04:45 UTC. The robot cargo hauler
spacecraft ascended to a two-day, 33-orbit ascent to
the International Space Station. Progress MS-16
carried about 2,460 kg of cargo, including 600 kg of
propellant, 40.5 kg of pressurized gases, 420 kg of
drinking water, and 1,400 kg of dry cargo. The cargo
included a repair kit for a leak on the Zvezda
service module.
It was the second Russian and R-7 launch of the
year.
CZ-3B TJSW 6
China's
CZ-3B/Enhanced orbited the sixth Tongxin Jishu
Shiyan Weixing (TJSW 6) communications engineering
test satellite from Xichang Satellite Launch Center
on February 4, 2019. Liftoff from LC 3 took place at
15:36 UTC. The launch vehicle's LH2/LOX fueled third
stage fired twice to send TJSW 6 into geosynchronous
transfer orbit. TJSW 6 may be a SIGINT, or a
communications satellite, or provide early warning
capability, or, maybe all or none of the above.
Starlink 1-18
A Falcon 9
v1.2 boosted the 18th operational group of 60
Starlink internet satellites from Kennedy Space
Center, Florida on February 4, 2021. Liftoff from
Space Launch Complex 40 took place at 06:19 UTC.
This flight jumped ahead in sequence after the
Starlink 1-17 launch campaign was delayed. The
latter Falcon 9 stood at KSC LC 39A while the
Starlink 1-18 liftoff took place a few miles down
the coast. Falcon 9's second stage performed two
burns to reach the low Earth deployment orbit. The
Starlinks separated at about 65 minutes after
liftoff. They will ultimately move themselves to 550
km operational orbits. Total deployed payload mass
was about 15,600 kg.
First stage B1060.5, on its fifth flight, fired for
2:33 before separating, flipping, and performing
entry and landing burns to land on "Of Course I
Still Love You" about 630 km downrange. No prelaunch
static test fire was performed. B1060 previously
boosted GPS 3-3, Starlinks 1-11 and 1-14, and
Turksat 5A during 2020-21. Turnaround from the
Turksat 5A mission was only 27 days.
The
second stage fired for 6 minutes 6 seconds to reach
an elliptical parking orbit. It restarted at T+45
minutes 55 seconds for only one second to raise the
orbit perigee.
Soyuz 2-1b Orbits Lotos S1 805
A Soyuz 2-1b launch vehicle orbited Russia's
Lotos S1 No. 805 signals intelligence satellite from
Plesetsk Cosmodrome on February 2, 2021. Liftoff of
the 2.5 stage rocket from Site 43/4 took place at
20:45 UTC. Lotos S1 805, a 6 tonne satellite built
by TsSKB Progress using a Yantar type bus, was
inserted into an initial 240 x 899 km x 67.14 deg
orbit. The satellite will later raise itself into a
900 km circular operational orbit.
The Arsenal
bureau developed the ELINT payload carried by Lotos
S1 805.
It was Russia's first launch of 2021.
SQX-1 Fails
China's Beijing
Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd. (iSpace)
suffered a failure of its SQX-1 (Hyperbola-1) launch
vehicle from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on
February 1, 2021. Liftoff took place at 08:15 UTC. The failure occurred
shortly after liftoff.
After rising cleanly from its launch stand, the
rocket began a pitch program, but then, possibly
while accelerating through MaxQ, something happened
to the front part of the rocket. The vehicle
disentegrated soon after. No payload had been announced for the flight. It was the second SQX-1
orbital attempt, following an inaugural success on
July 25, 2019.
The four-stage rocket, possibly based on solid
rocket motors from DF-11 or DF-15 ballistic
missiles, was 24 meters long, an increase of 3.2
meters from the inaugual version. It retained its
1.4 meter maximum diameter. Liftoff thrust was 42
tonnes. Gross liftoff weight likely exceeded 31
tonnes. Payload capability was listed at 300 kg to a
sun synchronous orbit, 40 kg more than for the first
SQX-1.
During 2018, iSpace conducted two
suborbital tests as part of its development effort.
One, which was 8.4 meters long, weighed 4.6 tonnes,
and used standard fins, was named SQX-1S. The other,
which used four grid fins for atmospheric steering,
was named SQX-1Z.
Yaogan 31 Launch
China's
CZ-4C, tail number Y31, orbited the Yaogan 31-02
triplet from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in
northwest China on January 29, 2021. Liftoff from LC
94/43 took place at 04:47 UTC. The three-stage
hypergolic propellant-fueled rocket likely
boosted the satellites toward a 1,100 km x 63.4 deg
orbit. The satellites are thought to be formation
flyers that triangulate the location of radio
emitters, most likely used to track naval ships.
Yaogan 31-02 entered an orbital plane that was 48
degrees east of the Yaogan 31-01 group that was
launched in 2018.
It was the second DF-5 based CZ launch of the
year.
Falcon 9 Transporter 1
A
Falcon 9 v1.2 boosted a record 143 satellites into
orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 24,
2021. Liftoff from SLC 40 took place at 15:00 UTC.
It was the second near-polar orbit launch by a
Falcon 9 from the Cape during the past year. Prior
to these flights, it had been 51 years since such a
southbound launch had flown from Florida. Falcon 9
doglegged from south-southeast to south-southwest
during its ascent as it flew down the Florida coast.
After
firing for 2 minutes 28 seconds during ascent, first
stage B1058.5, on its fifth flight, performed entry
and landing burns to land on the "Of Course I Still
Love You" drone ship down range.
The second
stage performed one, 5 minute 55 second burn to
reach a roughly 230 x 540 km parking orbit. The
stage flew over Cuba and Panama and Antarctica
before performing a 2-second restart over the Indian
Ocean about 54 minutes 35 seconds after liftoff to
reach a roughly 540 km sun synchronous orbit. A more
than 30-minute long period of satellite deployments
then took place. Payload included 133 commercial and
government CubeSats, microsats, and orbital transfer
vehicles, along with 10 Starlink satellites.
The first stage prevously launched the Demo 2
Crew Dragon mission, ANASIS 2, Starlink 1-12, and
the CRS-21 Dragon 2 cargo mission, all during 2020
from Florida. The stage was not static test fired
prior to this launch.
Starlink 1-16
A Falcon 9 v1.2 boosted the 16th operational group of 60 Starlink internet satellites from
Kennedy Space Center, Florida on January 20, 2021. Liftoff from Launch Complex 39 Pad A
took place at 13:02 UTC. The Falcon 9 second stage performed two burns to reach the low
Earth deployment orbit. The Starlinks separated at about 64 minutes after liftoff. They
will ultimately move themselves to 550 km operational orbits. Total deployed payload mass
was about 15,600 kg.
First stage B1051.8, on its fleet-leading eighth flight, fired for 2:32 before separating,
flipping, and performing entry and landing burns to land on "Just Read the Instructions"
some 633 km downrange. No prelaunch static test fire was performed. B1051 previously boosted
the Dragon 2 Demo-1 mission in March, 2019, followed by the RADARSAT Constellation Mission
from Vandenberg AFB during June 2019, Starlinks 1-F3, 1-F6, 1-F9, and 1-F13 during 2020,
and SXM-7 in December, 2020.
The second stage fired for 6 minutes 2 seconds to reach an elliptical parking orbit. It
restarted at T+45 minutes 35 seconds for only one second to raise the orbit perigee.
Electron Mystery Satellite
Rocket Lab’s 18th Electron orbited a mysterious satellite built by Germany's
OHB from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula LC 1 on January 20, 2021. The three-stage
Electron/Curie rocket, named "Another One Leaves the Crust", lifted off at 07:26 UTC,
beginning a one-hour mission that lofted the satellite into a low Earth orbit. OHB
refused to identify the satellite owner, and only revealed the "GMS-T" satellite
name after the launch.
The first stage fired for about 2 minutes 30 seconds and the second for about
6 minutes 9 seconds to insert the storable propellant Curie upper stage and
payload into an ellipical transfer oribt. Curie coasted to apogee where,
beginning at T+66:07, it fired for 3 minutes
21 seconds to circularize the orbit. The satellite separated about one
70 minutes after liftoff.
CZ-3B/Tiantong 1-03
China's
Chang Zheng (Long March) 3B/E orbited the third
Tiantong 1 mobile communications satellite (Tiantong
1-03) from Xichang Satellite Launch Center on
January 19, 2021. Liftoff from Launch Complex 2 took
place at 16:25 UTC. The satellite, which may have
weighed 5 tonnes or more, was inserted into a
geosynchronous transfer orbit after two burns by the
rocket's liquid hydrogen fueled upper stage.
After it raises
itself to geostationary orbit, the satellite will
provide mobile communications coverage to China, the
Middle East, Africa, and the Indian and Pacific
Oceans. Tiantong 1-03 provides S-band mobile
communications services for China SatCom. It was
developed by the Chinese Academy of Space
Technology. The first Tiantong 1 was launched on
August 5, 2016, followed by the second on November
12, 2020.
LauncherOne Success
Virgin Orbit's LauncherOne reached orbit for the
first time on January 17, 2021 after a 19:39 UTC
drop release from Virgin Orbit's Cosmic Girl 747
carrier aircraft off the California coast. Ten NASA
cubesats rode the innovative, 25.855 tonne rocket to
orbit during its Launch Demo 2 flight. The success
came about eight months after the first LauncherOne
failed shortly after its LOX/Kerosene NewtonThree
engine ignited.
This
time, the 21.3 meter long, two-stage rocket's first
stage engine ignited cleanly and completed its 33.34
tonne-thrust, roughly 3-minute burn. The second
stage NewtonFour engine then provided 2.27 tonnes of
thrust for about 5 minutes 56 seconds to reach a
transfer orbit. After a coast to apogee, NewtonFour
restarted for roughly 4.3 seconds at about T+55
minutes 46 seconds to reach its 492 x 518 km x 60.7
deg insertion orbit.
After the Cubesats separated, the second stage
performed a final orbit lowering burn or maneuver, ending up
in a 415 x 504 km orbit. The cubesats were
part of the 20th Educational Launch of
NanoSatellites (ELaNa 20) mission. Total deployed
payload mass was 23.86 kg.
It was the
first successful orbital launch by a liquid-fueled,
air-drop-launched rocket.
Turksat 5A
A SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.2 boosted
the Turksat 5A communications satellite into an
elliptical, likely supersynchronous, transfer orbit
from Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 8, 2021.
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 took place at
02:15 UTC. The Falcon 9 second stage fired twice to
loft the 3.5 tonne Airbus Defense and Space E3000EOR
series satellite into its insertion orbit. Turksat
5A deployed 33 min 4 sec after liftoff.
First stage B1060.4, flying for the fourth time,
fired for 2 min 34 sec before flipping to perform
entry and landing burns before landing on the Just
Read the Instructions droneship floating 673 km
downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. It will be the 70th
successful stage recovery if B1060.4 returns safely
to port. The stage previously boosted the GPS 3-3
and Starlink 1-11 and 1-14 missions during 2020. The
second stage fired from 2 min 38 sec to 8 min 02 sec
to reach a parking orbit, then restarted at T+26 min
51 sec for a 70 sec-long insertion burn. The
previously-flown fairing halves separated at T+3 min
37 sec. Retreival ships Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief
waited 786 km downrange to attempt recovery.
Soyuz Orbits CSO 2
Russia's
Soyuz 2.1a/Fregat performed the Arianespace VS25
mission from Kourou Space Center on December 29,
2020, carrying the CSO 2 French defense imaging
satellite into sun synchronous orbit. The satellite
will peform high resolution imaging in the visible
and infrared bands.
Liftoff from the Soyuz launch
complex (ELS) took place at 16:42 UTC. The 2.5 stage
Soyuz completed its ascent 8 min 49 sec after
liftoff. About one minute later, Fregat began the
first of its four planned burns. The first placed
the vehicle into an elliptical parking orbit. Near
first apogee Fregat ignited for its second burn
beginning at T+54 minutes 7 seconds after liftoff.
This burn circularized the orbit at about 480 km
with a 97.3 degree inclination. The 3,562kg Airbus
Defense and Space/Thales Alenia Space satellite
separated at T+59:37. Fregat performed two
subsequent maneuvering burns to separate from CSO 2
and to lower the orbit of the spent stage.
The liftoff was delayed one day by unacceptable high
altitude winds. It was the 15th and final R-7 based
launch of 2020, completing the 64th year of flight
by Korolev's trailblazing rocket.
CZ-4C/Yaogan 33
China's
CZ-4C number Y-35 orbited the Yaogan 33 synthetic
aperture radar satellite and a secondary payload
from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on December
28, 2020. Liftoff from Site 43 Pad 94 took place at
15:44 UTC. The CZ-4C restartable third stage fired
twice to reach a sun synchronous low earth orbit,
then fired again to lower the orbit of the spent
stage for future reentry.
A previous Yaogan 33 failed
to reach orbit during a May 22, 2019 launch attempt
from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The launch reportedly
failed due to structural resonance between the third stage and
its relatively heavy Yaogan 33 remote sensing payload,
possibly during the reignition of the third stage. Yaogan 29,
believed to be the first of this type of SAR
satellite, was orbited from Taiyuan on November 26,
2015. Both previous launches were performed by CZ-4C
launch vehicles, but this flight was the first from
Jiuquan for this payload type.
It was the
25th DF-5 based CZ launch of 2020, matching Falcon
9's world-leading orbital launch total, though the
CZ-2,3,4 family suffered one launch failure during
the year versus no failures for Falcon 9. The launch
did cement China's first place orbital launch standing
among the world's nations for 2020, with 35 successes
in 39 attempts.
CZ-8 Inaugural
China debuted
its CZ-8 medium-lift launch vehicle on December 22,
2020. The 2.5-stage, 50.3 meter tall, 356 tonne
rocket boosted five satellites into sun synchronous
orbit after an 04:37 UTC liftoff from Wenchang
Spacecraft Launch Site on China's Hainan island. The
primary payload was 3 tonne XJY-7, a classified
remote sensing technology test satellite. Hisea 1, a
180 kg C-band sythetic aperture radar satellite was
also orbited, along with three nanoosatellites.
CZ-8 uses
the CZ-7 3.35 meter diameter core with its twin
YF-100 staged combustion kerosene/LOX engines, but
augmented by only two of the 2.25 meter diameter
liquid strap-on boosters, each using a single
YF-100, rather than CZ-7's four. The CZ-7 second
stage is not used. Instead, a 3 meter diameter
liquid hydrogen/LOX dual YF-75-powered upper stage
that is used by CZ-3A/B and CZ-7A serves as a second
stage. CZ-8 is designed to lift 4.5 tonnes to a 700
km sun synchronous orbit, or 2.5 tonnes to
geosynchronous transfer orbit, slightly less than
existing CZ-3A capability. This launch achieved a
roughly 510 km x 97.4 deg sun synchronous orbit.
On this flight the YF-100 engines throttled down
for the first time, to 77.5% at Max-Q. The two
boosters shut down and separated at T+172 seconds.
The core burned until T+208 seconds. The payload
fairing separated at T+215 seconds, shortly after
second stage ignition. Stage 2 shut down at T+479
seconds to reach a temporary ascent trajectory. The
stage performed a second burn from t+885 to 1030
seconds to reach its insertion orbit.
Falcon 9 Orbits NROL 108
SpaceX’s Falcon 9
orbited NROL 108, a secret payload for the National
Reconnaissance Office, from Kennedy Space Center
Launch Complex 39 Pad A on December 19, 2020.
Liftoff took place at 14:00 UTC, following an
aborted attempt two days earlier caused by a
slightly high second stage LOX pressure reading.
Falcon 9 headed on a northeast azimuth that some
analysts believed indicated a 50-52 deg inclination
low Earth orbit similar to NROL 76, which was
launched by a Falcon 9 on May 1, 2017. No coverage
was provided of the second stage performance as the
flight entered a press blackout. The NRO announced a
successful launch several hours after the liftoff.
After completing its short, 2 min 18 sec
ascent burn, first stage B1059.5, on its fifth
flight, flipped and performed a 3-engine boostback
burn. It flipped again before performing a 3-engine
entry burn, following by a single engine landing
burn. The stage landed at Cape Canaveral Landing
Zone 1 about 8 minutes 15 seconds after liftoff. It
was the 69th successful first or booster stage
landing and recovery. B1059 previously boosted the
CRS-19 and 20 Dragon missions, Starlink 1-8, and
SAOCOM 1B during 2019-20.
B1059.5 Lands at Cape Canaveral LZ-1
The second stage
was expected to perform a deorbit burn sometime
after satellite separation. A targeted zone for the
stage to fall was listed in the Pacific Ocean near
the equator south of Baja California.
It was
the 25th Falcon 9 orbital flight of the year, a
record for the rocket. One additional Falcon 9
performed the suborbital Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort
test during the year. It was also the 30th orbital
launch from Cape Canaveral and KSC during 2020, a
number not seen since 1966 when 31 orbital attempts
were made, but only 29 of those 1966 attempts made
orbit while all 30 flights in 2020 succeeded.
Soyuz Orbits OneWeb 75-110
Russia's Soyuz 2-1b/Fregat M orbited 36 more OneWeb
Internet satellites into low Earth orbit from
Vostochny Cosmodrome on December 18, 2020. Liftoff
from Site 1S took place at 12:26 UTC. The 3 hour 10
minute Starsem ST29 mission placed the 36
satellites, each weighing 147.5 kg, into 440 km x
87.4 deg orbits. Total deployed payload mass was
5,310 kg. The payload deployment system addded
another 500 kg of undeployed mass.
Fregat completed its first
burn at 15 min 29 sec to reach a 150 x 427 km x 87.4
deg transfer orbit. Its second burn, begun at apogee
1 hour 13 minutes 40 seconds after liftoff,
circularized the orbit. Satellites deployed in six
groups of four during the subsequent roughly 1.5
hours, separated by Fregat ACS burns. Fregat
performed a deorbit burn about 3 hours after launch.
It was the first OneWeb launch since March
21, 2020. The company declared bankruptcy soon after
that launch. It emerged from Chapter 11 during late
November after it was sold to a group led by Bharti
Global and the British government.
The flight was the 100th orbital launch success of 2020.
PSLV/CMS 1
India's PSLV-XL orbited the CMS 1
government communications satellite from Sriharikota
on December 17, 2020. Liftoff of the C50 mission from the Second Launch
Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Center took place at
10:11 UTC. The 4.5-stage rocket boosted the 1,410 kg
satellite into a 284 x 20,650 km x 17.86 degree
subsynchronous transfer orbit.
CMS 1,
previously known as GSAT 12R, will raise itself to
geostationary orbit to replace GSAT 12. It will
serve India and nearby islands.
Four of the
PSOM-XL strap-on solid motors ignited with the PS1
solid motor first stage at liftoff. The other two
ignited at T+25 seconds. The PSOMs separated in
pairs at T+69, 70, and 92 seconds. First stage PS1
cutoff at T+109 seconds and the hypergolic liquid
fueled PS2 second stage ignited one second later for
its 2 min 34 sec burn. The payload fairing separated
at T+3 min 23 sec during the burn. Solid fuel HPS3
fired next, for 6 min 14 sec. The PS4 monomethyl
hydrazine fueled fourth stage then fired for 8 min
35 sec to reach the insertion orbit. CMS 1 separated
at T+20 min 11 sec.
Astra
Rocket Falls Short of Orbit
Astra's Rocket 3.2, a small two-stage LOX/Kerosene fueled rocket, failed to reach orbit during
its second orbital attempt from Alaska's Kodiak Launch Pad 3B on December 15, 2020, after a
20:55UTC liftoff. The mission proceeded past staging through most of the second stage burn,
but the stage shut down about 12-15 seconds short of the burn time needed to achieve
its planned 380 km x 98.1 deg orbit. The cause was improper propellant mixture
ratio, which caused the kerosene to be depleted while significant LOX remained.
The company's earlier, March 2020 attempts to fly Rocket 3.0 for the Darpa Challenge failed to produce a launch after
multiple countdowns. A final, March 23 attempt ended with a prelaunch failure that destroyed the rocket and started a
fire at the launch site. A September 12, 2020 orbital launch attempt by Rocket 3.1 failed about 20 seconds into
flight due to oscillations introduced by the guidance system.
Astra Rocket stands 11.6 meters tall and is 1.32 meters diameter. Its probably weighs 10-11 tonnes at liftoff,
rising on 14.275 tonnes of thrust provided by its five battery-powered Delphin rocket engines . It uses an
"ultra-low-cost" metal structure. Although designed to place at least 100 kg into a presumably near-polar low
Earth orbit, Astra 3.2 carried no payload during this orbital flight test.
Astra performed two suborbital test launches during 2018 from Kodiak, Alaska, using only live first stages.
The first, an Astra Rocket 1.0 flown from Launch Pad 2 on July 21, 2018, reportedly failed about 60 seconds
after liftoff. The second, an Astra Rocket 2.0, failed shortly after its November 29, 2018 attempt from the
same pad.
Electron 17
Rocket Lab’s 17th Electron
orbited the StriX-a sythetic aperature radar (SAR)
imaging satellite from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula
LC 1 on December 15, 2020. The three-stage
Electron/Curie rocket, named "Owl's Night Begins",
lifted off at 10:09 UTC, beginning a one-hour
mission that lofted the 150 kg satellite into a
routhly 495 x 513 km x 97.37 deg synchronous
orbit.
The first stage fired for about 2
minutes 27 seconds and the second for about 6
minutes 12 seconds to insert the storable propellant
Curie upper stage and payload into an ellipical
transfer oribt. Curie coasted to a 500 km apogee
where, beginning at T+52:28, it fired for 1 minute
54 seconds to circularize the orbit. The satellite
separated about one hour after liftoff.
StriX-a is
the first of a planned Synspective constellation of
more than 30 small SAR satellites designed to scan
cities across Asia.
It was the seventh Electron launch and sixth success of 2020.
Angara A5 Test
Russia's Angara A5 performed
its second test flight on December 14, 2020. The 773
tonne 3.5 stage rocket lifted off from Site 35/1 at
05:50 UTC, rising on 980 tonnes of thrust from its
five Energomash RD-191 kerosene/LOX engines. It
carried a dummy payload mass simulator named IPM,
aimed toward a near-geosynchronous orbit during a
nine-hour mission that included five burns by the
Briz-M upper stage. After achieving its target
orbit, Briz-M performed its fifth burn to raise
itself and its dummy payload to a higher, "burial"
orbit.
It was the first Angara A5 flight
since the first on December 23, 2014. The long delay
was caused in part by a shift in URM-1 manufacturing
from Krunichev near Moscow to PO Polyot neaq Omsk.
The second flight was essentially a repeat of the
first, part of the process of certifying the new
rocket to replace long-lived Proton. It will
eventually fly from Vostochny Cosmodrome.
Angara A5 consists of five 2.9 meter diameter URM-1
(Universal Rocket Module) units clustered to form a
core stage surrounded by four booster stages. The
core first stage is topped by a 3.6 meter diameter
URM-2 second stage and a Briz M third stage. Each
URM-1 is powered by a single chamber, 196 tonne
thrust RD-191 staged combustion kerosene/LOX engine.
RD-191 is derived from the four-chamber Energomash
RD-171 engine that powered the Zenit launcher. URM-2
is powered by a 30 tonne thrust LOX/kerosene RD-0124
engine. This staged-combustion engine was developed
to power the upgraded Soyuz-2 third stage. The
Briz-M hypergolic propellant third stage has flown
for years atop Proton-M boosters.
After
liftoff, the core throttled down while the four
strap-on boosters burned at full thrust. The
boosters separated about 3.5 minutes into the
flight. The core stage separated less than two
minutes later. After the second stage burned out at
about the 12 minute 26 second mark (it fell into the
western Pacific Ocean), the first Briz-M burn
inserted the stage and payload into a low earth
orbit with a 63 deg inclination. Subsequent burns
moved the vehicle into an initial elliptical
transfer orbit. The fourth burn circularized the
orbit at geosynchronous altitude.
SXM-7
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket reached orbit
for the 100th time on December 13, 2020 when it
boosted the SXM-7 communications satellite into a
subsynchronous transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral,
Florida. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 took
place at 17:30 UTC. The second stage performed two
burns to accelerate the roughly 7 tonne satellite
into its insertion orbit for customer Sirius XM .
Meanwhile, first stage B1051.7, flying for the
seventh time, landed on the Just Read the
Instructions drone ship after completing its portion
of the ascent.
B1051 had previously boosted
Crew Dragon Demo 1, RADARSAT Constellation, and four
Starlink missions, during 2019-20. One of the
payload fairing halves had also flown before, during
the ANASIS 2 mission in July 2020.
The first stage
was static fired at SLC 40 on December 7. A December 11
launch attempt was aborted with less than one minute
remaining in the countdown due to a ground equipment issue.
SXM-7 was inserted into a roughly 249 x 19,515 km x
27 deg initial subsynchronous transfer orbit from
which it will gradually raise itself to
geosynchronous orbit at 35,786 km altitude.
Delta 4 Heavy Launch
A United Launch Alliance
Delta 4 Heavy boosted the National Reconnaissance
Office (NRO) L-44 mission (NROL-44) into what was
likely a geosynchronous orbit from Cape Canaveral,
Florida on December 11, 2020. Liftoff from Space
Launch Complex 37B took place at 01:09 UTC. ULA's
success annoucement came more than 6 hours later,
consistent with the time needed for the Delta 4
upper stage to perform a three-burn geosynchronous
insertion mission. Analysts believe the payload is
an ADVANCED ORION (Mentor) SIGINT satellite.
Delta 385 experienced a long, challenging launch
campaign. It was erected at the pad during November,
2019 for propellant loading testing during January,
2020. This allowed ULA crews to shift back to Atlas
missions during the ensuing months. After the
NROL-44 payload was stacked, the rocket experienced
a series of scrubs and aborts. An August 27 attempt
was stopped by pneumatic issues during fueling. An
August 29 countdown ended in an abort at T-3 seconds
that shut down one of the three RS-68A engines. A
pad pressure regulator failure was the cause. ULA
replaced all three regulators during the ensuing
weeks. A September 30 countdown ended in another
abort, this time at T-7 seconds just before the
engines started. This abort was caused by a faulty
sensor.
Pad swing arm hydraulic issues had
appeared during the September 30 countdown, so ULA
decided to spend several weeks resolving that
problem before performing the final, successful
countdown.
It was the 12th Delta 4 Heavy
launch. Four more Delta 4 Heavy launches remain on
the schedule with the last expected during 2024.
CZ-11/GECAM
China's
four-stage solid fuel CZ-11 launched the
Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic
Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) into low earth
orbit from Xichang Satellite Launch Center on
December 9, 2020. It was the second CZ-11 launch
from Xichang. Liftoff took place at 20:14 UTC.
GECAM is a two-satellite mission
designed to measure the "electromagnetic
counterparts of gravitational waves, high-energy
radiation from fast radio bursts, various gamma-ray
bursts, and magnetar flares", according to the
National Space Science Center under the Chinese
Academy of Sciences (CAS).
It was the 11th
known CZ-11 flight since the type premiered on
September 25, 2015. The 58 tonne rocket may be based
on China's DF-31 series solid fuel ballistic
missile. CZ-11 is reportedly 20.8 meters long (other
reports suggest 18.7 meters) and 2 meters in
diameter with a 120 tonne liftoff thrust. Its fourth
stage has demonstrated in-space maneuvering
capability. CZ-11 may be able to lift 350 kg or more
to sun synchronous orbit. This was the first CZ-11
assembled at the CZ-11 Sea Launch home port at
Haiyang, Shandong.
Dragon 2 Cargo
The 100th Falcon 9 to attempt orbit boosted the
first unmanned Cargo Dragon 2 from Kennedy Space
Center toward the International Space Station on
December 6, 2020. Liftoff of SpaceX Cargo Resupply
Mission 21 from Launch Complex 39 Pad A took place
at 16:17 UTC. The Dragon 2 Cargo capsule carried
2.972 tonnes of cargo, including the 1.09 tonne
Bishop Airlock mounted inside the aft truck section
of the spacecraft.
The CRS-21 spacecraft was
the first based on the Crew Dragon 2 design. It did
not include the Super Draco abort thruster system or
its abort propellant. The interior of the capsule
had cargo mounting shelves in place of crew couches.
Liftoff mass was not announced, but some reports
suggest it was about 12.5 tonnes. It was the first
time that NASA had used a crew-type spacecraft to
carry cargo, something the USSR and Russia have done
with Soyuz and Progress since the 1970s. The use of
a common spacecraft promises engineering advantages
and possible monetary savings over the long run.
First stage B1058.4 provided the first 2.5
minutes of boost before separating, flipping 180
degrees, and performing entry and landing burns to
land of the Of Course I Still Love You drone ship
positioned about --- km downrange in the Atlantic
Ocean. The stage previously boosted the DM-2 Crew
Dragon mission - the first with crew, ANASIS 2, and
Starlink 1-12, all since May 30, 2020. The stage
performed a prelaunch static firing at LC 39A on
December 3 with CRS-21 attached. A December 5 launch
attempt was scrubbed by weather conditions
downrange.
It was the 99th Falcon 9 to reach
orbit out of those 100 attempts, a total that
includes a low-orbit partial failure that lost a
secondary payload in 2012. A 101st Falcon 9
performed a suborbital crew abort test in early
2020. A 102nd Falcon 9 was destroyed with its AMOS 6
payload during pre-launch propellant loading for a
static firing attempt at SLC 40 in 2016. The first
five Falcon 9's were much different than the current
variant. They were smaller, powered by Merlin 1C
engines, and not designed for first stage recovery.
Gaofen 14
China's CZ-3B/E, flying for the first time as an enhanced "G5" variant with an
extended payload fairing, boosted Gaofen 14, a "surveying and mapping satellite",
from Xichang on January 6, 2020. Liftoff from LC 3 took place at 03:58 UTC.
For the first time, CZ-3B/E flew south, south-west toward a sun synchronous Earth
orbit. The 3.5 stage rocket usually flies on an east azimuth from Xichang toward
geosynchronous transfer orbit.
Gaofen 14 may carry an optical remote sensing system built in Belarus. It will
operate from 500 km altitude.
Gonets-M Launch
Russia's
Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat M orbited three more Gonets M
communication satellites and at least one classified
satellite from Plesetsk Cosmodrome on December 3,
2020. Liftoff from Site 43 Pad 3 took place at 01:14
UTC. The Fregat M stage aimed to boost all four
satellites into 1,400 km x 82.5 deg orbits during a
roughly 2 hour mission that likely included two
Fregat M burns.
It was
the second Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat M to orbit Gonets M
satellites, which weigh about 280 kg each at launch,
or 840 kg total. The mass of the classified
satellite was unknown, but previous Soyuz
2.1b/Fregat M vehicles have lofted more than 1.4
tonnes to similar orbits from Plesetsk in the past.
Satellite numbers 30, 31, and 32 were launched on
this mission. The satellites perform store and dump
messaging. Now-retired Rokot performed earlier
Gonets M launches.
Soyuz Kourou Launch
Russia's
Soyuz 2.1a/Fregat performed the Arianespace VS24
mission from Kourou Space Center on December 2,
2020, carrying the FalconEye 2 optical Earth
observation satellite for the Armed Forces of the
United Arab Emirates (UAEAF) into sun synchronous
orbit. Liftoff from the Soyuz launch complex (ELS)
took place at 01:33 UTC. The 2.5 stage Soyuz
completed its ascent 8 min 48 sec after liftoff.
About one minute later, Fregat began the first of
its three planned burns. The first placed the
vehicle into an elliptical parking orbit. As first
apogee approached, Fregat ignited for its second
burn just under 55 minutes after liftoff. This burn
circularized the orbit at about 611 km. The 1,190 kg
Airbus Defense and Space/Thales Alenia Space
satellite separated at T+58:45. Fregat performed an
orbit lowering burn a bit less than an hour later.
The liftoff was
delayed twice by weather and once by a data link
issue during the three days before liftoff took
place. Prior to that, the flight was delayed by
months after an oxidizer leak was discovered
involving a Fregat thruster. A decision was made to
replace the stage, but the Covid-19 epidemic halted
the entire campaign until late Fall. FalconEye 2
itself had originally been slated to fly on Vega,
but was moved to Soyuz after the 2019 Vega failure.
It was 2020's first Soyuz launch from Kourou.
H-2A Orbits Data Relay Satellite
Japan's H-2A boosted the classified Japan Data
Relay Satellite (JDRS 1) into geosynchronous
transfer orbit from Tanegashima on November 29,
2020. The H-2A-202 variant with two SRB-A strap on
solid boosters began the F43 mission from Yoshinobu
Pad 1 at 07:25 UTC. Webcast coverage of the mission
ended shortly after liftoff. The second stage likely
performed two burns during a roughly half-hour
mission. About an hour after launch, MHI Launch
Services confirmed that spacecraft separation had
occurred.
JDRS 1
will raise itself to geostationary orbit, where it
will relay data from both military and civil
satellites that operate in low Earth orbit. It is
equipped with a lasar communications system that can
transmit data at up to 1.8 gigabits per seconds.
It was the third H-2A flight of the year. The
final H-2B also flew from Tanegashima during 2020.
100th Falcon 9 Launch
The
100th SpaceX Falcon 9 launch boosted the 15th operational
group of 60 Starlink internet satellites from Cape
Canaveral, Florida on November 25, 2020. Liftoff
from Space Launch Complex 40 took place at 02:13
UTC. For the first time in several Starlink
missions, the Falcon 9 second stage performed a
single ascent burn, this time reportedly aiming for
a roughly 210 x 360 km x 53 deg deployment orbit.
The Starlinks separated at about T+14 minutes
44seconds. They will ultimately move themselves to
550 km operational orbits. Total deployed payload
mass was about 15,600 kg.
First stage B1049.7, on its fleet-leading seventh
flight, fired for 2:32 before separating, flipping,
and performing entry and landing burns to land on
"Of Course I Still Love You" some 634 km downrange.
The stage was static test fired on the pad on
November 21, one day after an aborted attempt.
B1049, the oldest currently active Falcon 9 first
stage, previously boosted Telstar 18V, Iridium NEXT
8, and Starlinks v1-2, -7, and -10, with the first
launch on September 10, 2018.
It was the
80th Falcon 9 v1.2 launched since 2015, and the 79th
orbital flight. One additional v1.2 performed the suborbital
Crew Abort test in early 2020 while an 81st Falcon 9 v1.2
was destroyed during propellant loading for the AMOS
6 pre-launch static firing test during 2016. Falcon 9 v1.1 flew
15 times during 2013-16, failing once. The original,
much smaller, Merlin 1C Falcon 9 v1.0 variant
launched five times during 2010-13, suffering one
launch vehicle failure that lost a secondary payload
but still managed to orbit
its primary cargo Dragon payload.
CZ-5 Chang'e 5
China's CZ-5
launched Chang'e 5, intended to return a sample from
the Moon, from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on
November 23, 2020. The 870 tonne, 2.5-stage rocket
lifted off from Pad 101 at 20:30 UTC. CZ-5's
liquid-hydrogen-fueled second stage fired its twin
YF-75 engines twice to accelerate the 8.2 tonne
spacecraft into a trans-lunar trajectory,
from which it will steer itself toward lunar orbit.
The four kerosen/LOX boosters burned
out about 177 secoonds after liftoff and separated
two seconds later. The core stage fired its twin
YF-77 LH2/LOX engines for a total of about 487
seconds. The second stage ignited three seconds
later and fired for about 250 seconds to reach a
parking orbit. The stage restarted about 1,677
seconds after liftoff for a roughly 233 second
insertion burn. Chang'e 5 separated about 2,185
seconds after liftoff.
Chang’e spacecraft
are named for a moon goddess in Chinese folklore. It
is the first attempt to return lunar samples since
1976.
Sentinel 6
Launch
A brand new SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket orbited the
ESA/NASA Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite, the
first of two identical satellites designed to
precisely measure global sea-level trends, from
Vandenberg AFB on November 21, 2020. Liftoff from
VAFB SLC-4E took place at 17:17 UTC. The Falcon 9
second stage performed two burns to insert the 1,192
kilogram Airbus Defence and Space-built satellite
into a 1,336 km x 66 deg orbit about 53 and a half
minutes after liftoff. The non-sun-synchronous orbit
will allow the satellite to revisit areas at
different times of the day and night, providing an
opportunity to measure sea levels at all hours of
the day.
Sentinel 6 was named Michael
Freilich for the former director of NASA’s Earth
Science Division.
B1063.1
Lands at VAFB LZ4
First stage B1063.1 fired
for a brief 2 min 17 sec before performing
boost-back, entry, and landing burns to land at
Landing Zone 4 adjacent to the launch site. The
second stage burned for 5 min 50 sec to reach an
initial elliptical transfer orbit. After a coast to
apogee, the stage restarted for about 10 seconds at
T+ 53 min 18 sec to circularize the orbit. Sentinel
6 separated moments later.
The Falcon 9 stages were
acceptance tested at McGregor, Texas, likely during July, 2020.
The assembled rocket was briefly static test fired at VAFB SLC 4E on
November 17. The second stage was expected to deorbit over the
South Pacific during the second orbit.
It was the first
West Coast Falcon 9 launch since June 12, 2019.
Electron 16
Rocket Lab’s
Electron launched for the 16th time on November 20,
2020, with 29 tiny Cubesats and a mass simulator in
the shape of a small gnome statue. Liftoff from New
Zealand's Mahia Peninsula LC 1 took place at 02:20
UTC. The three-stage Electron/Curie rocket, named
"Return to Sender”, boosted a total active payload
of only about 45-50 kg into a 500 km x 97.3 deg sun
synchronous orbit during the roughly one-hour
mission.
In a first test of its type for
Electron, the first stage, after separating, fired
thrusters to orient itself for reentry, then
deployed drouge and main parachutes and splashed
down in the Pacific Ocean less than 13 minutes after
liftoff. A ship recovered the floating stage. The
stage will be inspected as part of an effort to
develop a reusable first stage that in the future
would be recovered in mid-air by a helicopter.
The first stage fired for about 2 minutes 33
seconds and the second for about 6 minutes 7 seconds
to insert the storable propellant Curie upper stage
and payload into an ellipical transfer orbit. Curie
coasted to a 500 km apogee where, beginning at
T+49:38, it fired for about 90 seconds to
circularize the orbit. The satellites separated
around one hour after liftoff.
Vega VV17 Fails
Europe's
Vega suffered its second failure in its past three
launches while attempting to orbit two Earth
observation satellites on November 17, 2020. The
AVUM liquid upper stage appeared responsible.
The VV17 mission for
Arianespace lifted off from the Kourou's ZLV pad at
01:52:20 UTC. Spain's SEOSAT-Ingenio and France's
TARANIS topped the rocket inside its fairing. The
plan was for Vega to place SEOSAT-Ingenio into a 670
km x 98.09 deg sun-synchronous orbit and TARANIS
into a 700 km x 98.19 deg sun-synchronous orbit
during a 1 hour 42 minute mission that would have
included four AVUM burns.
Vega’s three solid
propellant motors fired successfully, but AVUM
suffered a problem during its first burn, which was
intended to place the stage and payload into an
initial elliptical parking orbit. The problem caused
loss of mission, with AVUM and its payload
apparently falling short of orbit.
Within
hours, Arianespace reported that the upper stage had
tumbled out of control shortly after ignition
because control cables had been improperly
installed. Telemetry indicated that cables to two
thrust vector control actuators had been inverted.
Commands meant for one had been routed to the other,
and vice versa.
Crew Dragon Launch
Falcon 9 launched the Crew
1 mission to the International Space Station from
Kennedy Space Center on November 16, 2020. On board
Crew Dragon C207 "Resilience" were NASA astronauts
Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker
along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
astronaut Soichi Noguchi. All but Glover were space
veterans. It was the first operational commercial
crew flight.
Liftoff from LC 39 Pad A took
place at 00:27 UTC. Crew Dragon separated from the
Falcon 9 second stage about 12 minutes after liftoff
to begin its one day trip to dock with ISS.
First stage B1061.1 fired its nine Merlin 1D engines
for 2 min 37 sec, aiming the vehicle on a northeast
trajectory off the eastern U.S. coast, before
shutting down and separating. The stage performed
entry and landing burns before landing on the "Just
Read the Instructions" drone ship about 9 min 29 sec
after liftoff. The second stage fired its single
Merlin 1D Vacuum engine from T+2 min 48 sec until
T+8 min 50 sec to reach a roughly 190 x 210 km x
51.6 deg low earth orbit.
The first stage was
static fired at McGregor, Texas, on April 24, 2020.
Two of its Merlin 1D engines were replaced after
close inspection in the wake of the GPS 3-4 booster
abort problem. B1061.1 performed a brief static test
firing at LC 39A on November 11, 2020 with Crew
Dragon stacked atop the vehicle.
Atlas 5/NROL-101
United Launch Alliance Atlas
5-531, boosted by the first three Northrop Grumman
GEM-63 solid rocket motors, orbited NROL-101 for the
U.S. National Reconnaisance Office from Cape
Canaveral, Florida on November 13, 2020. Liftoff
from SLC 41 took place at 22:32 UTC. The AV-090
vehicle, topped by a Medium height, 5 meter diameter
fairing stood 62.8 meters tall.
AV-090 flew
sharply northeast, skirting the Eastern Seaboard and
apparently overflying Newfoundland. It appeared
bound for a relatively high inclination orbit,
possibly a Molniya type, 12-hour orbit, though that
is speculation. The classified mission could be a
data relay satellite, or it could be something else.
Mission success was not announced until about 2.5
hours after liftoff, indicating a possible long
coast to Centaur restart and/or payload separation.
AV-090 performed a wet dress rehearsal at SLC 41 on October 21. The payload was stacked five days later.
A November 5 launch attempt was scrubbed by LOX ground system problems.
GEM 63 is 63 inches diameter and 66 feet
(20.12 m) long. The booster, which replaces the
original Aerojet AJ-62, burns 44.23 tonnes of
propellant for 94 seconds, producing up to 168.54
tonnes of thrust. A stretched, more-powerful GEM
63XL version is slated to boost ULA's upcoming
Vulcan Centaur
CZ-3B Orbits Comsat
China's
Chang Zheng (Long March) 3B/E orbited the second
Tiantong 1 mobile communications satellite (Tiantong
1-02) from Xichang Satellite Launch Center on
November 12, 2020. Liftoff from Launch Complex 2
took place at 15:59 UTC. The satellite, which may
have weighed 5 tonnes or more, was inserted into a
geosynchronous transfer orbit after two burns by the
rocket's liquid hydrogen fueled upper stage.
After it
raises itself to geostationary orbit, the satellite
will provide mobile communications coverage to
China, the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian and
Pacific Oceans. Tiantong 1-02 provides S-band mobile
communications services for China SatCom. It was
developed by the Chinese Academy of Space
Technology. The first Tiantong 1 was launched on
August 5, 2016.
India Launch
After enduring
a long year fighting Covid-19, India returned to
space for the first time during 2020 with a PSLV
launch of the EOS-1 radar Earth observation
satellite from Satish Dhawan Space Center at
Sriharikota on November 7, 2020. Liftoff from the
First Launch Pad took place at 09:37 UTC during a
rainstorm. It was the second flight of a PSLV-DL
variant, which uses two PS0M-XL strap-on solid
motors.
The 4.5 stage rocket,
performing mission number C49, fired its strap-on
motors for 1 minute 10 seconds, its S139 first stage
solid motor for 1 minute 50 seconds, and its
Vikas-powered UDMH/N2O4 fueled second stage for 2
minutes 13 seconds to boost its MMH/MON fueled
fourth stage on a coast toward apogee where its twin
L-2-5 engines ignited to provide the orbital
insertion. The 628 kg EOS-1 satellite separated into
a 575 km x 36.9 deg orbit. Nine nanosatellites were
also orbited.
Ceres-1 Inaugural
China's Ceres-1 launch
vehicle performed its first launch successfully from
Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on November 7, 2020,
placing a small, 50 kg data transfer satellite named
Tianqi 11 into a 500 km x 97.4 deg sun synchronous
orbit.
Ceres-1, a 31 tonne, 19 meter tall
rocket uses three HTBD solid motors topped by a
liquid propellant fourth stage. It is able to lift
230 kg to 700 km sun synchronous orbits, or 350 kg
to a 200 km lower inclination orbit. A commercial
company, Galactic Energy, developed and launched the
rocket. It is likely based in part on existing China
missile technology. Its first two stages, for
example, share the same 1.4 meter diameter dimension
as China's DF-21/25/26 IRBM family.
The
first stage GS-1 motor produces 60 tonnes thrust
during a 74 second burn. The GS-2 second stage makes
28 tonnes thrust for 70 seconds. The GS-3 third
stage produces 8.8 tonnes thrust for 69 seconds. The
liquid fourth stage uses low-thrust, pressure-fed
engines for insertion burns and can fire for up to
310 seconds. Ceres-1 launched from a simple steel
launch stand standing on a flat pad.
Galactic Energy is the fourth
commercial Chinese company to make an orbital
attempt since the first in 2018. Landspace failed in
October 2018, followed by OneSpace in March 2019.
The iSpace company became to the first to succeed
with its Hyperbola 1 launcher during July 2019.
CZ-6 Launch
China's fourth
Chang Zheng 6 (CZ-6) orbited 13 microsatellites from
Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center on November 6, 2020.
Liftoff from LC 16 took place at 03:19 UTC. On board
were ten 37.5 kg Satellitelogic NuSats for Argentina
and three small satellites for China. The
three-stage rocket lifted a total payload of at
least 500 kg into a 500 km x 97.5 deg sun
synchronous orbit.
CZ-6, the first of China's all-new launch
vehicle generation, debuted from the same site on
September 19, 2015 and flew again on November 21,
2017 and November 13, 2019. A single 122 tonne
thrust, staged-combustion cycle YF-100 LOX/kerosene
engine powered the routhly 103 tonne, three-stage
launch vehicle off of its launch pad. YF-100,
China's first big LOX/kerosene engine, also powers
the country's larger CZ-5 and CZ-7 launch vehicles.
The first stage burned for about 155 seconds. The
second stage, powered by a YF-115 staged combustion
engine producing 18 tonnes of thrust, burned
LOX/kerosene for about 290 seconds. At apogee, a
small kick stage, powered by four 408 kgf thrust
YF-85 hydrogen peroxide/kerosene engines, fired to
circularize the orbit.
CZ-6 is capable of
lifting 1,080 kg into a 700 km sun synchronous
orbit. It is integrated horizontally in a hangar. A
large wheeled transporter/erector carries it to its
flat launch pad and erects it shortly before launch.
GPS 3-4
The 100th SpaceX
Falcon 9-family launch boosted GPS 3-4 into a 419 x
22,440 km x 55 degree transfer orbit for the U.S.
Space Force from Cape Canaveral, Florida on November
5, 2020. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 took
place at 23:24 UTC. The liftoff ended a long-delayed
campaign that included a static test on September 25
and a last-second aborted launch attempt on October
3. That auto-abort at T-2 seconds resulted from
prematurely high pressure buildup in two Merlin 1D
first stage engine gas generators.
The
October 3 abort forced a fast-paced investigation
that found a previously unknown Merlin 1D flaw. The
two engines were removed and sent to McGregor, Texas
for testing, where the problem was reproduced.
Testing discovered that a production process masking
lacquer material had blocked a vent hole leading to
a relief valve in the engine's gas generators. Two
new Merlin 1D engines took their place on the
brand-new B1062.1 booster. The flaw was found to
affect other boosters built after B1060.
The
GPS 3-4 satellite was sent back to Astrotech in
Titusville, Florida for battery charging while
another Falcon 9 launched from SLC 40. The
campaign restarted with a new static test at SLC 40
on October 31 and with return of the satellite to
the launch complex on November 1.
Falcon 9
climbed on a northeast track up the Eastern
seaboard. Its B1062.1 first stage fired for 2 min 31
sec before flipping 180 degrees to perform entry and
landing burns to land on the “Of Course I Still Love
You” droneship floating in the Atlantic Ocean. The
second stage fired for 5 min 25 sec to reach a
parking orbit. It restarted about 63 min 32 sec
after liftoff, firing for 45 seconds to reach its
insertion orbit. GPS 3-4 separated about 25 minutes
later while the 4,311 kg spacecraft was in view of
ground stations in Hawaii and California.
It
was the 96th Falcon 9 orbital attempt. One
additional Falcon 9 performed a suborbital crew
abort test. Three Falcon Heavy launches increase the
total to 100.
Electron 15
Rocket Lab’s
Electron performed its 15th launch on October 28,
2020, with a 21:21 UTC liftoff from New Zealand's
Mahia Peninsula LC 1. The three-stage Electron/Curie
rocket, named "In Focus”, orbited Canon Electronics
35.5 kg CE-SAT-IIB and nine Planet Flock 4e
SuperDove cubesats that together weighed about 45
kg.
The first
stage fired for about 2 minutes 42 seconds and the
second for about 6 minutes 12 seconds to insert the
storable propellant Curie upper stage and payload
into an ellipical transfer oribt. Curie coasted to a
500 km apogee where, beginning at T+51:06, it fired
for 2 minutes 6 seconds to circularize the 97.5 deg
sun synchronous orbit. The satellites separated
around one hour after liftoff.
The liftoff
followed an October 21 launch attempt that was
scrubbed by bad oxygen sensor data.
CZ-2C/Yaogan 30-07
China
orbited its seventh set of Yaogan 30 triplet
satellites on October 26, 2020 with a Chang Zheng 2C
launch vehicle. The two stage rocket rose from
Xichang Satellite Launch Center's LC 3 at 15:19 UTC.
The satellite triplet was named Yaogan-30 Group 7.
The "electromagnetic detection" satellites were
inserted into roughly 600 km x 35 deg orbits.
The satellites may be
formation flyers similar to the U.S. NOSS system,
which perform a signals intelligence mission
designed to monitor surface ship electronic
emissions. It was the seventh launch for this
constellation, all by CZ-2C rockets from Xichang LC
3, since September 29, 2017.
Glonass-K Launch
Russia's
Soyuz 2-1b/Fregat orbited a Glonass-K navigation
satellite from Plesetsk Cosmodrome on October 25,
2020. Liftoff from Site 43 Pad 3 took place at 19:08
UTC. Fregat performed three burns to deliver the
satellite (Uragan-K 15L) into a roughly 19,100 km x
64.8 degree circular medium earth orbit about 3.5
hours after liftoff.
The satellite weighed about
935 kg at launch.
Starlink v1-14
Falcon 9
first stage B1060.3 powered the Starlink v1-14
mission toward orbit from Cape Canaveral SLC 40 on
October 24, 2020 with 60 more Starlink satellites.
Liftoff took place at 15:31 UTC. The 60-satellite,
15.6 tonne payload separated into a roughly 260 km x
53 deg low Earth orbit about 63 minutes after
liftoff.
The
first stage, which previously boosted the GPS 3-3
and Starlink v1-11 flights, fired for 2 minutes 32
seconds, then separated and performed entry and
landing burns before landing on the “Just Read the
Instructions” droneship 634 km downrange in the
Atlantic Ocean. The stage had been briefly static
fired with second stage and payload at SLC 40 on
October 21. An inital launch attempt was scrubbed
about 15 minutes before T-0 on October 22 when a
second stage engineering camera lost power.
The second stage fired its Merlin Vacuum engine for
about 6 minutes 10 seconds to reach a parking orbit,
then restarted at T+44:36 for two seconds to raise
perigee. The stage was expected to perform a reentry
burn targeting a reentry south of Australia during
the second orbit.
It was the 75th successful
orbital Falcon 9 v1.2, a record achieved in less
than five years of service. It was also the 13th
SpaceX-owned Starlink launch of 2020, out of 18
total orbital Falcon 9 flights.
Starlink v1-13
Falcon 9
first stage B1051.6 boosted the Starlink v1-13
mission toward orbit from Kennedy Space Center LC
39A on October 18, 2020 with 60 more Starlink
satellites. Liftoff took place at 12:25 UTC. The
60-satellite, 15.6 tonne payload separated into a
roughly 260 x 280 km x 53 deg low Earth orbit about
63 minutes after liftoff.
The first stage, which previously boosted the
DM-1 unmanned Crew Dragon flight, Canada's RCM
mission, and Starlink v1 Flights 3, 6, and 9, fired
for 2 minutes 32 seconds, then separated and
performed entry and landing burns before landing on
the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship 633 km
downrange on the Atlantic Ocean. The stage had been
hot fired at LC 39A on October 17. Both fairing
halves were flying for the third time. They were
caught by SpaceX recovery ships, though one broke
through Ms Tree's catch net and may have been
damaged.
The second stage fired its Merlin
Vacuum engine for 6 minutes 5 seconds to reach a
parking orbit, then restarted at T+44:04 for two
seconds to raise perigee. The stage was expected to
perform a reentry burn targeting a reentry south of
Australia during the second orbit
Soyuz MS-17 Launch
A Russian
Soyuz 2.1a boosted Soyuz MS-17 into orbit from
Baikonur Cosmodrome with three crew on October 14,
2020. Russia's Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey
Kud-Sverchkov and NASA's Kate Rubins lifted off from
Site 31 Pad 6 at 05:45 UTC, beginning an ultra-fast
three-hour ascent to dock with the International
Space Station at 08:48 UTC. It was the first use of
the three-hour ascent during a crewed mission.
The flight
carried the final planned NASA-purchased seat for a
U.S. astronaut. The Agency plans to switch to SpaceX
Crew Dragon and Boeing Starliner spacecraft for future
flights. It is possible that the U.S. and Russia
will in the future perform seat-swaps, with Russians
occasionally riding the U.S. vehicles and U.S.
crewmembers riding Soyuz.
CZ-3B/Gaofen 13
China's
Chang Zheng 3B launched Gaofen 13, a big optical
reconnaisance satellite, into geosynchronous
transfer orbit from Xichang Satellite Launch Center
on October 11, 2020. Liftoff of the "Enhanced"
CZ-3B, tail number number Y63, from LC 2 took place
at 16:57 UTC. The liquid hydrogen third stage
performed two burns during the roughly half-hour
mission.
The satellite
appears to be an improvement from Gaofen 4, which
was launched to GTO by another CZ-3B in 2015. It
consists of a large central telescope section
extending from a base section that itself sports
twin solar arrays. In geosynchronous orbit, such a
satellite could be aimed to image any area at any
time on probably more than one-third of the Earth's
surface whenever cloud cover permits. CZ-3B/E can
boost more than 5.5 tonnes to GTO. This satellite
likely approached the upper capability of the launch
vehicle.
Once again, China provided only
last-minute notice of the launch. It was the 21st DF-5 based orbital
launch of the year and 20th success. It was also
China's 30th orbital attempt of the year and 26th
success.
Starlink v1-12 Launch
Nineteen days after its first attempt, after
suffering a late-count abort on October 1 and
weather scrubs on September 17, 28, and October 5, a
Falcon 9 powered by first stage B1058.3 finally
launched from Kennedy Space Center LC 39A on October
6, 2020 with 60 more Starlink satellites. The
Starlink v1.0-12 mission (SpaceX confusingly also identified it
as "Starlink 13") lifted off at 11:29 UTC. The 15.6
tonne payload separated into a roughly 260 x 280 km
x 53 deg low Earth orbit about 61.5 minutes after
liftoff.
The first stage,
which previously boosted the historic Commercial
Crew DM-2 mission and the ANASIS 2 launch, fired for
2 minutes 32 seconds, then separated and performed
entry and landing burns before landing on the “Of
Course I Still Love You” droneship in the Atlantic
Ocean. One of the fairing halves was caught by a
SpaceX recovery ship - a rare success for that
recovery method. One of the halves had previously
flown twice, on the Starlink v0.9 and v1.0-15
launches.
The second stage fired its Merlin
Vacuum engine for 6 minutes 5 seconds to reach a
parking orbit, then restarted at T+42:26 for two
seconds to raise perigee. Although the stage was
expected to perform a reentry burn of some type
after payload separation, it remained in a 238 x 261
km x 52.99 deg orbit as of October 17.
Antares/Cygnus NG-14
The 13th Antares launch
vehicle - and third upgraded Antares 230+ - boosted
Northrop Grumman's Cygnus NG-14 cargo spacecraft
into orbit from Wallops Island, Virginia on October
3, 2020. Liftoff from Pad 0A took place at 01:16
UTC. The liftoff followed an aborted attempt one day
earlier at T-2:40 caused by a ground problem.
Like Antares 230, the Antares 230+ first stage
is powered by two Energomash RD-181 engines in place
of the AJ-26 engines that powered the first five
Antares flights. Antares 230+ uses a stronger first
stage structure to allow full-thrust operation
through much of its burn. In addition, unneeded dry
mass was stripped from the first and second stages
and a single-piece interstage was implemented.
Cygnus NG-14 was the 11th enhanced Cygnus with a
stretched Thales Alenia Space cargo module and the
eighth to fly on Antares. Atlas 5 rockets orbited
the other three. NG-14 probably weighed about 7,420
kg at launch, including 3,551 kg of cargo for the
International Space Station. Cygnus NG-14 was named
in honor of Kalpana Chawla, NASA's first female
astronaut of Indian descent, who died during the
failed STS-107 reentry of Space Shuttle Columbia.
The RD-181 engines produced 392 tonnes of thrust
to power the nearly 293 tonne rocket off its pad.
The Ukrainian-built first stage burned for about 198
seconds. After first stage shutdown, the upper
composite separated at T+206 seconds and coasted
upward. The shroud and interstage adapter separated
at 235 and 240 seconds, respectively. At about T+258
seconds the Northrop Grumman Castor 30XL second
stage motor ignited to produce an average of about
51 tonnes of thrust during its roughly 165 second
burn. Cygnus separated at T+537 seconds into a 183 x
262 km x 51.649 deg orbit.
Gonets-M Launch
Russia's Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat M orbited three Gonets M
communication satellites and 18 small rideshare
payloads from Plesetsk Cosmodrome on September 28,
2020. Liftoff from Site 43 Pad 4 took place at 11:20
UTC. The Fregat M stage placed its primary payloads
into 1,400 km x 82.5 deg orbits.
It was the
first use of Soyuz 2.1b/Fregat M to orbit Gonets M
satellites. Now-retired Rokot performed previous
launches. Satellite numbers 27, 28, and 29 were
launched on this mission. The satellites perform
store and dump messaging.
Rideshare
satellites from Finland, the USA, Canada, Lithuania,
Germany, the UAE, and Russia were also orbited on
this flight.
CZ-4B Taiyuan Launch
China's Chang Zheng 4B (CZ-4B number Y42) boosted
the HJ-2A and HJ-2B environmental monitoring
satellites into orbit from Taiyuan Satellite Launch
Center on September 27, 2020. Liftoff from Pad 9
took place at 03:23 UTC. The satellites replace
HJ-1A and HJ-1B. They will provide multispectral
imaging to monitor the environment, natural
resources, water conservancy, and agriculture and
forestry.
CZ-4B/HY 2C
China's Chang Zheng 4B (CZ-4B) number Y41 carried
Haiyang 2C (HY 2C), an ocean observation satellite,
into low earth orbit from Jiuquan Satellite Launch
Center on September 21, 2020. Liftoff from LC 43 Pad
94 (43/603) took place at 05:40 UTC. The three-stage
hypergolic propellant rocket inserted its payload
into a 931 x 948 km x 66 deg orbit with third stage
cutoff 12 minutes 27 seconds after liftoff. The
stage performed a single 7 minute 35 second burn
during the ascent. After spacecraft separation, the
third stage performed a depletion burn to lower its
apogee to 654 km, enabling its eventual reentry.
HY 2C carried a microwave radiometer to monitor
sea states.
The first stage was fitted with
four grid fins, similar to Falcon 9 first stages,
for steering the stage toward a smaller drop zone
box.
CZ-11 Sea Launch
China's
CZ-11 performed its second orbital launch from a
floating platform on the Yellow Sea on September 15,
2020. The four-stage, DF-31 missile-based rocket,
tail number HY2, boosted nine imaging satellites
into 535 km sun synchronous orbits after an 01:23
UTC launch from the new Debo 3 ship. The ship
replaces a barge used for the first sea launch in
2019.
Three
Gaofen 03C video satellites and six Gaofen 03B
push-broom (scanning) satellites were orbited. The
rocket flew on a southbound ascent profile for the
first time from this site. The first stage drop zone
was offshore from China's east coast while the
second stage flew directly over the length of Taiwan
from north to south.
KZ-1A Failure
China's
Kuaizhou 1A launch vehicle failed to place its
Jilin-1 Gaofen 02C remote sensing satellite into low
earth orbit as planned after a 05:02 UTC liftoff
from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on September
12, 2020. It was the first failure of the Kuaizhou
1/1A series after 11 previous successes since 2013.
This rocket, tail number Y3, was the 10th improved
KZ-1A variant to fly.
Gaofen 02C was to have
been inserted into a 535 km sun synchronous orbit.
It weighed about 230 kg at launch. Some reports
suggested that the hypergolic liquid upper stage
failed, preventing completion of the final apogee
kick insertion burn.
Expace Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of
China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp., managed
the launch campaign.
Rocket 3.1 Fails
Astra's Rocket 3.1, a small
two-stage LOX/Kerosene fueled rocket, failed during
its first orbital launch attempt from Alaska's
Kodiak Launch Pad 3B on September 12, 2020,
after a 03:20 UTC liftoff. The rocket rose for
slightly more than 20 seconds before, acccording to
Astra, oscillations introduced by the guidance
system caused "the vehicle to drift from its planned
trajectory, leading to a commanded shutdown of the
engines by the flight safety system". Witnesses saw
the vehicle tumbling out of the sky to an explosive
impact on the ground after its five battery-powered
Delphin rocket engines cut off.
The company's
earlier, March 2020 attempts to fly Rocket 3.0 for
the Darpa Challenge failed to produce a launch after
multiple countdowns. A final, March 23 attempt ended
with a prelaunch failure that destroyed the rocket
and started a fire at the launch site.
Astra
Rocket stands 11.6 meters tall and is 1.32 meters
diameter. Its probably weighs 10-11 tonnes at
liftoff, rising on 14.275 tonnes of thrust. It uses
an "ultra-low-cost" metal structure. Although
designed to place at least 100 kg into a presumably
near-polar low Earth orbit, Astra 3.1 carried no
payload during this initial orbital flight test.
Astra performed two suborbital test launches
during 2018 from Kodiak, Alaska, using only live
first stages. The first, an Astra Rocket 1.0 flown
from Launch Pad 2 on July 21, 2018, reportedly
failed about 60 seconds after liftoff. The second,
an Astra Rocket 2.0, failed shortly after its
November 29, 2018 attempt from the same pad.
CZ-4B Launch
China's Chang
Zheng (CZ) 4B, tail number Y46, orbited another
remote sensing satellite, named Gaofen 11-02, on
September 07, 2020. Liftoff of the storable
propellant rocket from Taiyuan Satellite Launch
Center's LC 9 took place at 05:57 UTC. The
three-stage storable propellant rocket boosted its
payload into a 248 x 694 km x 97.3 deg sun synchronous
type low Earth orbit. The satellite will likely adjust
itself toward a roughly 500 km near-circular orbit over
time if the history of Gaofen 11-01 is a guide.
According to reports from
China, the satellite carried high resoultion optical
imaging equipment and will be used for civil
planning, disaster prevention and mitigation, and
national defense, among other uses. While the mass of the
satellite was not announced, CZ-4B is able to lift 2.5 tonnes
to a 700 km sun synchronous orbit.
It was
the year's third CZ-4B launch and the 18th DF-5
based orbital attempt.
Secret CZ-2F Launch
China's CZ-2F, flying for the first time in nearly
four years, boosted a top secret experimental
reusable test spacecraft into orbit from Jiuquan
Satellite Launch Center on September 4, 2020.
Liftoff from Site 43/91 took place at about 07:30
UTC. Four objects were subsequently tracked, two in
roughly 330 x 348 km x 50.2 deg orbits and two in
roughly 346 x 566 km x 49.9 deg orbits. Xinhua
announced that the test spacecraft would orbit for
an unspecified period of time before returning to
Earth at a "domestic landing site". No details about
the spacecraft and no photographs of the launch or
of the launch vehicle were initially released. It was not
clear if the spacecraft was winged or was a
ballistic reentry vehicle, for example.
On September 6, Xinhua news agency reported that the reusable
spacecraft had landed. No details about the landing site or
landing time and no photographs were provided. The type of
spacecraft was also not mentioned. Meanwhile,
some apparently unofficial videos of the launch were made
available. These showed a rocket with a standard width fairing
similar to that used by the type "T" CZ-2F.
Falcon 9/Starlink 1 F11
A
Falcon 9 performing the 100th SpaceX orbital launch
attempt orbited the eleventh operational group of 60
Starlink internet satellites from Kennedy Space
Center on September 3, 2020. Liftoff from Launch
Complex 39 Pad A took place at 12:46 UTC. The Falcon
9 second stage performed a single ascent burn to
reach a roughly 220 x 380 km x 53 deg deployment
orbit. The Starlinks separated at about T+14 minutes
47 seconds. They will ultimately move themselves to
550 km operational orbits.
Total deployed payload
mass was about 15,600 kg. The flight increased the
total number of orbited Starlink satellites, both
precursor and operational, to 715, though several
have been retired and are being deorbited. A
constellation of thousands of the 260 kg, Redmond
Washington-built satellites is planned.
First
stage B1060.2, on its second flight; which
previously boosted GPS 3-3 from SLC 40 on June 30,
2020; performed entry and landing burns before
landing on "Of Course I Still Love You" some 350
nautical miles downrange. The stage was not
hot-fired on the pad prior to launch, a practice now
becoming common. The stage is the newest
currently-active Falcon 9 booster, though three or
four more have been built and tested and are
preparing for flight.
Attempts to recover the new payload fairing halves
failed. Recovery boats returned to Port Canaveral
with only shroud fragments. The second stage was to
have performed a deorbit burn during its first orbit in
order to target an impact zone off the California coast.
No confirmation of that burn and reentry was possible as
of several days after the launch.
Vega Returns
After months of delay caused by Covid-19, high altitude winds, and a typhon on the
other side of the planet, Europe's Vega rocket finally returned to service with
launch of the VV16 Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) Proof of Concept (PoC)
mission from Kourou Space Center on September 3, 2020. Liftoff from Kourou's
Vega Launch Zone (ZLV) took place at 01:51 UTC. Vega's AVUM upper stage performed
four burns to insert 53 micro and nanosatellites into 515 km and 530 km sun
synchronous orbits. The final satellite separated about 1 hour 45 minutes after
liftoff.
It was Vega's first launch since July 2019, when VV15's Zefiro 23 second stage
motor suffered a forward dome burn-through as it fired.
The European Space Agency (ESA) funded SSMS development, which includes a
modular SSMS dispenser. VV16 carried seven microsatellites (15 to 150 kg) on
an upper dispensar part and 46 smaller CubeSats on a lower dispensar
"Hexamodule". Total satellite mass was 877 kg.
Electron 14
Rocket Lab’s
Electron returned to service with its 14th launch on
August 31, 2020. The three-stage Electron/Curie
rocket, named "I Can’t Believe It’s Not Optical”,
boosted Capella Space's "Sequoia" synthetic
aperature radar (SAR) mapping satellite. Liftoff
from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula LC 1 took place
at 03:05 UTC. After a 2 minute 36 second first stage
burn and a 6 minute 9 second second stage firing,
the storable propellant Curie upper stage and
payload coasted to a 530-ish km apogee where, beginning
at T+52:52, Curie fired for 2 minutes 26 seconds to
circularize the 45 degree inclination orbit. The 100
kg satellite separated about one hour after liftoff into
a 531 x 546 km x 45.1 deg orbit.
After Sequoia separated, the Curie stage transitioned into
Photon test
spacecraft mode, flying in a 528 x 547 x 45.1 deg orbit
for an extended test. Photon carries solar cells and
rechargeable batteries and uses the Curie stage's RCS
and control systems to maintain flight control. The
roughly 50 kg Curie/Photon can carry up to 170 kg of
payload while serving as a satellite bus in a manner
reminiscent of Lockheed's long-retired Agena stage.
The launch took
place nearly two months after Electron 13 failed to
reach orbit when its second stage engine shut down
early. Rocket Lab’s investigation determined that an
overheating electrical connection that carried
engine turbopump current was to blame for the
failure. Improved testing methods were developed to
detect such potential failures in the future.
It was the year's 60th successful orbital launch.
Falcon 9 Orbits SAOCOM 1B
A Falcon 9 v1.2
placed Argentina's SAOCOM 1B into sun synchronous
low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida on
August 30, 2020. Liftoff from SLC 40 took place at
23:19 UTC. It was the first near-polar orbit launch
from the Cape since Delta 67 orbited ESSA 9 during
1969. After firing for 2 minutes 17 seconds during
ascent, first stage B1059.4, on its fourth launch,
performed boost-back, entry, and landing burns to
land at Cape Canaveral's Landing Zone 1. It was the
15th successful landing at LZ 1 out of 16 attempts
since 2015. Three additional landings have taken
place at nearby LZ 2 during Falcon Heavy flights.
The second stage performed one, 461 second burn
to carry the 3,050 kg satellite into a roughly 610
km orbit. During the burn, the stage doglegged from
south-southeast to south-southwest along the eastern
Florida coast. The stage then flew over Cuba and
Panama before deploying SAOCOM 1B about 14 minutes 9
seconds after liftoff. Two microsatellites, GNOMES-1
and Tyvak-0172, separated at about T+61 and 62
minutes.
The first stage prevously launched
CRS-19, CRS-20, and Starlink V1 F8 during 2019-2020.
It was not static test fired prior to this launch.
The SAOCOM 1B launch was originally scheduled for
early 2020, but the Covid-19 pandemic prevented
ground crew travel from Argentina, causing delays. A
Falcon 9 orbited similar SAOCOM 1A from VAFB SLC 4E
during 2018. The relatively light payload allowed
SpaceX to shift the SAOCOM 1B launch to the Cape in
a move meant to save money. The company shifted or
shed most of its VAFB launch team after completing
its Iridium NEXT constellation launches in 2018.
CZ-2D/Gaofen 9-05
China's
CZ-2D orbited Gaofen 9-05, adding to the growing
Gaofen 9 Earth observation satellite constellation,
from Jiuquan Satellite Launcher Center on August 23,
2020. Liftoff of CZ-2D Y57 from LC 43/94 (43/603)
took place at 02:27 UTC. A pair of microsatellites,
one named Tiantuo 5 and one identified as a
"multi-functional test satellite" were orbited.
Gaofen 9-05 separated into a sun synchronous orbit.
It was the fourth CZ-2D/Gaofen 9 launch in 2020
to date, all from Jiuquan.
Falcon 9/Starlink 1 F10
Falcon 9 first stage B1049.6 on its sixth flight - a
new record for Falcon 9 - boosted the tenth
operational group of 58 Starlink internet satellites
from Cape Canaveral on August 18, 2020, along with
three rideshare Planet Skysat imaging satellites.
Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 took place at
14:31 UTC. The Falcon 9 second stage performed a
single ascent burn to reach a roughly 220 x 380 km x
53 deg deployment orbit. Skysats 19-21 separated
between 12 and 14 minutes after liftoff. The
Starlinks separated at about T+46 minutes. The
Starlink satellites will ultimately move themselves
to 550 km operational orbits.
Total deployed payload mass was about 15,440 kg,
including about 120 kg for each of the Skysats. The
flight increased the total number of orbited
Starlink satellites, both precursor and operational,
to 655, though several are being retired and
deorbited. A constellation of thousands of the 260
kg, Redmond Washington-built satellites is planned.
The payload fairing halves previously flew and
were recovered during the January, 2020 Starlink 1
F3 launch. The first stage, which previously boosted
Telstar 18 VANTAGE in September 2018, Iridium-8 in
January 2019, and three Starlink missions in May
2019, January 2020, and June 2020, performed entry
and landing burns before landing on "Of Course I
Still Love You" some 350 nautical miles downrange.
The stage was hot-fired at SLC 40 on August 17 with
payload attached. It is the oldest currently-active
Falcon 9 booster.
It was the 70th orbital
Falcon 9 v1.2 and the 13th orbital
Falcon 9 flight of 2020. SpaceX-owned Starlink has
accounted for 9 of the launches. The company has
only performed two beyond-LEO launches during 2020
to date.
Ariane 5 Launch
Ariane 5 ECA L5112 performed
the Arianespace Mission VA253 launch from Kourou on
August 15, 2020. Liftoff from ELA 3 took place at
22:04 UTC. The 47 minute 39 second mission
successfully deployed three satellites into
geosynchronous transfer orbit.
Northrop
Grumman-built Galaxy 30 and MEV-2, which were
connected together at launch, rode atop the Sylda
adapter. 3,298 kg Galaxy 30, a GEOStar-2.4E
communications satellite for Intelsat to serve the
USA, separated at T+27 min 47 sec. 2,976 kg MEV-2,
the second Mission Extension Vehicle 2 (MEV-2)
spacecraft, a GEOStar-3 designed to dock with old
satellites to extend their lifetimes, separated at
T+34 min 22 sec. MEV-2 will dock with Intelsat 10-02
in geosynchronous orbit.
BSAT-4b, a 3,530 kg
Maxar (Space Systems/Loral) SSL-1300 series
communications satellite, rode inside Sylda and
separated at T+47 min 37 sec. It will serve Japan's
Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (BSAT) ,
which provides communication and broadcasting
satellite services for Japan.
The launch
followed an aborted July 31 launch attempt that
forced a rollback to replace a defective sensor.
It was the first Ariane 5 launch since February,
operations having been affected by the Covid-19
pandamic.
ULA/SpaceX Win NSSL
On
August 7, 2020, the U.S. Space Force awarded
National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contracts to
United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, locking out
bidders Blue Origin (New Glenn) and Northrop Grumman
(Omega) as primary contractors, though both would
serve as subcontractors for ULA's winning Vulcan
launch vehicle.
ULA won about 60% of the launch
services orders and SpaceX about 40% during
2020-2024. ULA will launch USSF-51 and USSF-106
during 2022. SpaceX will launch USSF-67 during 2022.
ULA won $337 million and SpaceX $316 million for
these initial launch services task orders. Some of
the SpaceX money may be for development of an
extended Falcon Heavy payload fairing and for a new
Mobile Service Tower at LC 39 Pad A.
ULA and
SpaceX will now compete annually for up to 34 NSSL
launches during during the 2020-2027 period. The
initial launches will be from Florida, with
California launch capability added after a couple of
years. Vulcan Centaur will launch from Cape
Canaveral SLC 41 and VAFB SLC 3E. Falcon 9/Heavy
will launch from KSC LC 39A and VAFB SLC 4W, with
some launches likely possible from Cape Canaveral
SLC 40.
Blue Origin announced that it
intended to continue development of its New Glenn
launch vehicle, aiming to win civil and commercial
space contracts. Northrop Grumman only said that it
was disappointed in the announcement. Omega's first
and second stage motors have already been test
fired, its mobile launch platform is under
construction, and its liquid hydrogen upper stage
was to have been test fired in a few months.
The announcement sets the stage for US space launch during the
next decade at least, since Pentagon money is a dominant
engine for launch business.
Falcon 9/Starlink 1 F9
The 89th orbital
Falcon 9, boosted by first stage B1051.5 on its
fifth flight, launched the ninth operational group
of 57 Starlink internet satellites from Kennedy
Space Center on August 7, 2020, along with two
rideshare BlackSky satellites. Liftoff from Launch
Complex 39A took place at 05:12 UTC. The Falcon 9
second stage performed two burns to reach a roughly
380 x 400 km x 53 deg deployment orbit. BlackSky
Global 7 and 8 deployment took place about an hour
after liftoff, followed 30 minutes later by Starlink
separation. The Starlink satellites will ultimately
move themselves to 550 km operational orbits.
Total deployed payload mass was about 15.192
metric tons (tonnes), including 112 kg for the two
Earth observation BlaskSky satellites. The flight
increased the total number of orbited Starlink
satellites, both precursor and operational, to 597,
though several are being retired and deorbited. A
constellation of thousands of the 260 kg, Redmond
Washington-built satellites is planned.
The
first stage, which previously boosted the DM-1 Crew
Dragon, RCM, and Starlink 1 F3 and F6 during
2019-20, performed entry and landing burns before
landing on "Of Course I Still Love You" downrange.
The stage was hot-fired at LC-39A on June 24 with
payload attached, but issues discovered during the
test delayed the launch. On July 8 weather scrubbed
a launch try and on July 11 the vehicle's third
launch attempt was halted due to unspecified
problems, possibly with the payload. The
long-delayed flight was hop-scotched by two other
Falcon 9 launches during its campaign.
CZ-2D/Gaofen 9-04
China's
50th CZ-2D orbited Gaofen 9-04, another Earth
observation satellite, from Jiuquan Satellite
Launcher Center on August 6, 2020. Liftoff from LC
43/94 (43/603) took place at 04:01:54 UTC. A gravity
and atmospheric science microsatellite named
Tsinghua was also orbited. Gaofen 9-04 separated
into a roughly 500 km x 97.5 deg sun synchronous
orbit.
It was the third
CZ-2D/Gaofen 9 launch in 2020 to date, all from
Jiuquan.
Proton Launch
Russia's
Proton M/Briz M launched two communication
satellites to a supersynchronous transfer orbit from
Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on July 30, 2020.
Liftoff from Site 200 Pad 39 took place at 21:25
UTC, beginning an 18 hour 16 minute mission that
included five burns by the Briz M upper stage. It
was the longest Proton M/Briz M mission.
Two Russian communication
satellites, Ekspress 80 and Ekspress 103, were
orbited. Express 80 weighed 2.11 tonnes at launch.
Express 103 weighed 2.28 tonnes. Express 80
separated first at T+17 hours 59 minutes 26 seconds.
Express 103 followed at T+18 hours 16 minutes 40
seconds.
Briz M fired first to reach a low
Earth parking orbit. It fired again beginning at
00:29:08 (HH:MM:SS), 02:12:52, and 09:11:43 to reach
GTO. Its fifth burn to reach its final orbit began at
T+17:49:30.
It was the first Proton launch of
the year, the 99th Proton M/Briz M, and the 424th
Proton launched since the big hypergolic launch
vehicle began flying in 1965.
Mars Rover Launch
Atlas 5 AV-088 launched NASA JPL's Mars-2020 mission
with the Perserverance rover toward Mars from Cape
Canaveral, Florida on July 30, 2020. Liftoff from
Space Launch Complex 41 took place at 11:50 UTC. The
Atlas 5-541 dropped its four solid motor boosters 1
min 50 sec after liftoff, shed its payload fairing
at T+3:28, and shut down its Russian RD-180 first
stage engine at T+4:22. The Centaur second stage
fired its RL10C-1 engine for 7 min 1 sec to reach a
parking orbit, then restarted at T+45:21 over the
Indian Ocean for a 7 min 38 sec burn that propelled
the roughly 4,082 kg payload into solar orbit.
Mars-2020 separated at T+57:42.
Mars-2020
includes a Cruise Stage, Aeroshell, Descent Stage,
the 1,025 kg Perserverance Rover, and a Heat Shield.
Riding along with the RTG-powered rover is the 1.8
kg Ingenuity helicopter, which will attempt to fly
above the surface of Mars.
It was the third
Mars-bound launch in recent weeks, all taking
advantage of this bi-annual Earth-Mars alignment.
AV-088 was the fifth Atlas 5 launch toward Mars, a
total that includes NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter in 2005, Curiosity rover in 2011, MAVEN
orbiter in 2013 and InSight lander in 2018.
ZY-3 Launch
Chang Zheng 4B number Y45 orbited
Ziyuan 3-3 and microsatellite Tianqi 10 from Taiyuan
Satellite Launch Center on July 25, 2020. The
three-stage, 249 tonne hypergolic propellant rocket lifted off
from LC 9 at 03:17 UTC. The third stage inserted the
2.63 tonne high resolution civil remote sensing
satellite into a roughly 505 km x 97.4 degree sun
synchronous orbit. Tianqi, an 8 kg communication
microsatellite for IoT communications, likely
entered a similar orbit.
During ascent the
second stage, after completing its burn and
separating from the rocket, performed a maneuver to
steer itself toward a small drop zone. The third
stage lowered its orbit after inserting the
satellites, likely through use of a RCS and
propellant blow down.
It was the second CZ-4B
launch of the year and the 14th DF-5 based CZ
liftoff.
Progress MS-15
Russia's
Soyuz 2.1a launched Progress MS-15 from Baikonur
Site 31 Pad 6 on July 23, 2020. Liftoff took place
at 14:26 UTC. The robot cargo hauler spacecraft flew
a fast-track, two orbit ascent to the International
Space Station. Progress MS-15 docked successfully
and automatically after initially mis-aligning its
final approach.
It was Russia's first orbital launch in two months,
since May 22, an usually long gap for a country that
until recent years traditionaly led the world's
launch totals.
Progress MS-15 carried 1,520
kg of dry cargo, about 600 kg of propellant for
transfer to ISS, 420 kg of water, and 46 kg of
compressed air.
CZ-5 Tianwen 1
China launched its first Mars mission on July 23, 2020, when CZ-5 number Y4 boosted the Tianwen 1 spacecraft into solar orbit.
The 870 tonne, 2.5-stage rocket lifted off from Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site Pad 101 at 00:41 UTC. The liquid-hydrogen-fueled
second stage fired its twin YF-75 engines twice to accelerate the 5 tonne spacecraft toward Mars during a roughly 36 minute mission.
Ascent times were as follows. Booster separation T+175 seconds, shroud separation T+362 seconds, Staging T+492 seconds,
Stage 2 cutoff T+702 seconds, Stage 2 restart T+1,165 seconds and shutdown at T+2,010 seconds, vernier cutoff T+2,107 seconds,
and spacecraft separation at T+2,177 seconds.
Tianwen means "Questions to Heaven", from a poem written by Qu Yuan roughly 2,500 years ago. China National Space
Administration (CNSA), which manages the orbiter/lander/rover project, provided no live information during the flight.
Falcon 9/ANASIS 2
The 68th orbital Falcon 9 v1.2 flight attempt
launched ANASIS 2 (Army/Navy/Air Force Satellite
Information System) for South Korea's military from
Cape Canaveral on July 20, 2020. Liftoff from SLC 40
took place at 21:30 UTC. Falcon 9's second stage
performed two burns during the roughly half-hour
flight to insert the Airbus-built
Eurostar E3000 series communications satellite into
an unknown elliptical (likely supersynchronous)
transfer orbit. ANASIS 2, which likely weighed 3.5
to 5 tonnes at liftoff, will presumably raise itself
to geosynchronous orbit where it will operate. First
stage B1058.2, which previously boosted the first
NASA commericial crew mission on May 30, 2020,
performed entry and landing burns to land on "Just
Read the Instructions" downrange in the Atlantic
Ocean.
B1058.2 performed a static test
firing at SLC 40 on July 11, 2020 with no payload
attached to the top of the rocket. At the time,
plans called for a July 14 liftoff. That plan was
stopped by a second stage problem that apparently
cropped up during the combined wet dress
rehearsal/static firing. The stage was either
repaired or replaced prior to the final launch
countdown.
Also on July 11, another Falcon
9, using first stage B1051.5 and topped by the Starlink v1-9
payload, had had its third launch attempt halted at
LC 39A due to unspecified problems, possibly with
the payload. That Falcon 9, which originally tried
to launch nearly a month ago and has since been
hop-scotched by two other Falcon 9 launches,
continues to await launch.
South Korea
received the satellite as part of a barter to offset
that country's F-35A fighter jet purchase from
Lockheed Martin. That company subcontracted the
satellite to Airbus.
This was the 55th Falcon 9 launch from Space Launch Complex 40,
matching the number of Titan launches (Titan 3C, 34D, Commercial Titan 3,
and Titan 4) that previously took place from the site. While it took
four decades for Titan to log 55 launches from (S)LC 40, Falcon 9 did
it in one decade.
H-2A/Hope
Japan's H-2A
launched the Emirates Mars Hope orbiter toward the
Red Planet from Tanegashima Space Center on July 19,
2020. Liftoff from Yoshinobu Pad 1 took place at
21:58 UTC. Hope is the UAE's first Mars mission.
H-2A-202
F42 performed the launch. The LE-5B powered liquid
hydrogen second stage performed two burns, the
second beginning 56 min 39 sec after liftoff as the
stage passed over the South Atlantic Ocean, to
accelerate the 1,350 kg spacecraft into solar orbit.
It was the first H-2A launch toward Mars.
Hope is
the first of several Mars-bound launches planned for
this summer.
Minotaur 4 NROL-129
Flying for the first time
under the Northrop Grumman banner, a Minotaur 4
boosted four National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
satellites into orbit from Wallops Flight Facility
on July 15, 2020. The NROL-129 mission lifted off
from Pad 0B at 13:46 UTC after a delay to allow a
boat to clear the range. It was the first Minotaur 4
launch from Wallops. A similar Minotaur 5 rose from
the same pad during 2013.
Minotaur 4 uses
three solid motor stages from retired Peacekeeper
ICBMs, topped by a commercial Orion 38 solid motor
housed in a Guidance and Control Assembly. The 85
tonne rocket lifted off on 209 tonnes of thrust from
its Thiokol SR-118 first stage motor, which burned
for 56 seconds. The Aerojet SR-119 124.7 tonne force
second stage motor immediately ignited and extended
its nozzle for its 60 second burn. The 29.5 tonne
force Hercules SR-120 third stage motor coasted for
ten seconds while extending its nozzle before
beginning its 72 second burn. Fairing separation
took place around the time of third stage ignition,
which saw the end of the launch webcast. The Orion
38 fourth stage likely performed its 3.65 tonne
force, 68 second burn after a roughly dozen-minute
coast.
The flight aimed southeast toward a
likely 43 deg inclination low Earth orbit. Minotaur
4 can lift 1.4 to 1.5 tonnes to such an orbit,
depending on altitude.
Northrop Grumman
(previously Orbital ATK and, before that, Orbital Sciences)
conducts Minotaur 4 launches under the U.S. Space
Force Orbital/Suborbital-3 contract.
KZ-11 Inaugural Failure
China's Kuaizhou 11 failed to orbit two small
satellites during its inaugural flight from Juiquan
Satellite Launch Center on July 10, 2020. Liftoff
from a mobile transporter launcher parked on a flat
pad took place at 04:17 UTC. The first minutes of
flight look nominal through second stage separation, but an unknown failure occurred
before orbit could be attained. The ascent was
planned to include a long coast phase to an
insertion more than an hour after launch.
KZ-11, managed by
Expace Technology and developed by China Aerospace
Science & Industry Corp (CASIC), is a three stage
solid-motor launch vehicle that is topped by a
liquid "Propulsion Control Module". It is likely
derived from China's DF-31 intercontinental
ballistic missile. KZ-11 is 2.2 meters diameter,
weighs 78 tonnes at liftoff, and is capable of
placing 1 tonne in a 700 km sun synchronous orbit.
The payload included 230 kg BilibiliSat and
97 kg Xiangrikui 2, which were lost in the failure.
KZ-11 is the latest in a string of new launch
vehicles developed in China since 2013 that are
based on solid propellant missiles. These include
the successful CZ-11 and KT-2, both DF-31 based, the
successful DF-21/25 based KZ-1(A), and the so-far
unsuccessful DF-26 based ZQ-1. KT-1, an early
solid-motor design, failed in two attempts during
2002-2003.
CZ-3B/APStar 6D
China's Chang Zheng 3B
boosted the APStar 6D communications satellite to
geosynchronous transfer orbit from Xichang Satellite
Launch Center on July 9, 2020. Liftoff of "Enhanced"
CZ-3B number Y64 from LC 3 took place at 12:10 UTC.
The liquid hydrogen third stage performed two burns
during the roughly half-hour mission.
The
5.55 tonne DFH-4E satellite was built by the China
Academy of Space Technology. It will be operated by
APT Satellite Company Ltd. The satellite will
provide Ku/Ka-band broadband internet communications
from geosynchronous orbit at 134 degrees East, after
raising itself to that orbit.
It was the 13th
DF-5 based orbital launch of the year and 12th
success. It was also the 5th beyond-LEO attempt and
4th success, more than any other launch vehicle
family despite an April CZ-3B failure.
Shavit-2 Spysat Launch
Israel's Shavit-2 rocket launched Ofeq 16, an
electro-optical reconnaissance satellite, into a
retrograde low earth orbit from Palmachim Air Base
on July 6, 2020. Liftoff of the 32.9 tonne launch
vehicle took place at 01:00 UTC. Ofeq 16, built by
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI Ltd), was boosted
into a retrograde low Earth orbit. It was the first
Shavit-2/Ofeq launch since Ofeq 11 was successfully
launched in 2016, but then suffered problems in
orbit.
The
launch was jointly carried out by IAI and the
Defense Ministry’s Space Administration, which is a
part of the Administration for the Development of
Weapons and Technological Infrastructure. It may
have been the 12th Shavit launch attempt since 1988.
Rarely-flown Shavit consists of three solid fuel
motor stages topped by an optional liquid fuel
fourth stage. Payloads of only 250-300 kg are
possible due to the fact that the rocket must launch
toward the west across the Mediterranean Sea, toward
the Straits of Gibralter, from Palmachim Airbase on
Israel's coast. The resulting westward, or
retrograde orbit, reduces payload mass compared to
an eastward launch that would gain free velocity
from the Earth's rotation.
CZ-2D Launch
China's Chang
Zheng (Long March) 2D Y29 orbited Shiyan Weixing 6-02
from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on July 4,
2020. Liftoff from Site 43 Pad 603 took place at
23:44 UTC. The satellite was inserted into a roughly
700 km x 98.19 deg sun synchronous orbit.
The mission of
Shiyan Weixing 6-02 was vaguely described by offical
new reports from China to be for "space
environmental exploration and related technical
tests".
It was the 12th DF-5 based orbital
launch of the year, more than any other launch
vehicle family.
Electron Fails
Rocket Lab's
13th Electron, named "Pics Or It Didn’t Happen’",
failed to reach orbit with seven small satellites on
July 4, 2020. Liftoff from Mahia, New Zealand's LC 1
took place at 21:19 UTC. The flight appeared normal
through the first stage burn, staging, second stage engine
start, and fairing separation. At about T+5 minutes 42
seconds, however, about 45 seconds before the
planned second stage battery hot-swap that would
have transferred second stage engine turbopump power
to a second battery, video downlink ended and
acceleration appeared to cease. The second stage
normally would have burned until the 9 minute 2
second mark to place the Curie third stage into a
parking orbit.
The primary payload was Canon Electronics
CE-SAT-IB with experimental imaging equipment, five
Planet SuperDove imaging satellites, and one
In-Space 6U CubeSat named Faraday 1.
Rocket
Lab confirmed that the vehicle was lost soon after
its webcast ended. The company vowed that it would
find the problem and return to flight soon. The
failure came after 11 consecutive Electron
successes.
CZ-4B Launch
China's CZ-4B, tail
number Y-43, orbited a high resolution imaging
satellite from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center on
July 3, 2020. Liftoff from LC 9 took place at 03:10
UTC. The 2.4 tonne satellite, CAST's first "GF"
series multi-mode "civil" optical imaging satellite,
was inserted into a sun synchronous orbit. A student
microsatellite named Xibaipo or Bayi 02 also rode to
orbit during the launch.
It was the first
CZ-4B launch of the year and the 11th DF-5 based CZ
orbital launch of 2020.
GPS 3-3
SpaceX Falcon 9
performed its second GPS 3 mission on June 30, 2020,
boosting Global Positioning System 3 Space Vehicle 3
into a medium transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral,
Florida. The 88th Falcon 9 to fly rose from Space
Launch Complex 40 at 20:10 UTC with the
Lockheed-Martin-built payload, beginning a 1.5 hour
mission that included two ascent burns by the second
stage. SpaceX recovered first stage B1060.1 on "Just
Read the Instructions" after it performed ascent,
entry, and landing burns.
During its previous, GPS 3-1
launch in 2018, Falcon 9's first stage was expended
while lofting its 4.4 tonne payload to a roughly
1,200 x 20,200 km x 55 deg orbit. On this flight,
the U.S. Space Force gave up some payload mass and
orbital energy to allow first stage recovery, with
4.311 tonne GPS 3-3 inserted into a 400 x 20,200 km
x 55 deg orbit.
Mission times were MECO at
2:31 follow by staging at 2:35. The second stage
fired from 2:42 until 8:07 to reach a parking orbit.
Fairing separation took place at 3:28. The first
stage completed its entry burn at 6:45 and landing
burn at 8:30. Stage 2 coasted until restarting at
1:03:28 for a 45 second transfer orbit insertion
burn. The stage and payload coasted for 25 more
minutes before GPS 3-3 separated.
The rocket
stages were test fired at McGregor, Texas, likely
during March, 2020. The assembled rocket performed a
first stage static test firing at SLC 40 on June 25.
China Navsat
Complete
China's CZ-3B/E, serial
number Y68, boosted 4.6 tonne Beidou 3 GEO-3 (Beidou 55) into
geosynchronous transfer orbit from Xichang Satellite
Launch Center on June 23, 2020. Liftoff from Pad 2
took place at 01:43 UTC. The launch, which took
place after a June 13 attempt was scrubbed by a
third stage vent valve issue, completed the Beidou 3
navigation satellite constellation.
It was
the first CZ-3B launch since a failed April 9, 2020
attempt to orbit Palapa N1. That vehicle's liquid
hydrogen fueled third stage suffered a failure
during its first burn.
CZ-2D Launch
China's CZ-2D,
serial number Y52, orbited high resolution Earth
imaging satellite Gaofen 9-03, along with two
microsatellites, from Jiuquan Satellite Launch
Center on June 17, 2020. Liftoff from LC 43/603
(also called 43/94) took place at 07:19 UTC. The
two-stage, hypergolic propellant rocket inserted the
satellites into sun synchronous low earth orbit.
The small
satellites included Pixing-3A - a Zhejiang
University experimental pico/nano-satellite test,
and HEDE-5 - a Beijing Hede Aerospace Technology
Co., Ltd. ship tracking satellite.
It was
the ninth DF-5 based launch of 2020.
Falcon 9/Starlink 1 F8
The 88th Falcon 9,
boosted by first stage B1059.3 on its third flight,
launched the eighth operational group of 58 Starlink
internet satellites from Cape Canaveral on June 13,
2020, along with three rideshare PlanetLabs
satellites named Skysat 16-18. Liftoff from Space
Launch Complex 40 took place at 09:15 UTC. The
Falcon 9 second stage performed a single, roughly 6
minute 10 second ascent burn to directly reach an
elliptical deployment orbit where, about 13 minutes
after liftoff, Skysat deployment took place. The
Starlink satellites separated about 13 minutes
later. They will ultimately move themselves to 550
km operational orbits. This was the fifth direct
ascent Starlink flight.
Total deployed
payload mass was about 15.41 metric tons (tonnes),
including 330 kg for the three Skysats. The flight
increased the total number of orbited Starlink
satellites, both precursor and operational, to 540,
though about a dozen or more of previously launched
satellites are being retired and deorbited. A
constellation of thousands of the 260 kg, Redmond
Washington-built satellites is planned.
The
first stage, which previously boosted CRS-19 and
CRS-20 to ISS during 2019-2020, performed entry and
landing burns before landing on "Of Course I Still
Love You" downrange. SpaceX chose not to hot fire
the first stage at SLC 40 before the launch,
possibly the first time such a static test has been
bypassed by the company. Both payload fairing halves
had also previously flown, one on the
JCSAT-18/Kacific1 mission and the other on Starlink
v1.0 F2.
Electron Launch
Rocket Lab's
twelfth
Electron launched five microsatellites on a
rideshare mission from New Zealand on June 13, 2020.
Liftoff of the "Don't Stop Me Now" mission from
Mahia Peninsula LC 1 took place at 05:12 GMT.
Payloads included three U.S. National Reconnaissance
Office (NRO) satellites, a University of New South
Wales "M2 Pathfinder" communications experiment
satellite for the Australian military, and a NASA
Boston University Cubesat mission named ANDESITE
designed to measure plasma currents in orbit.
The launch had been delayed from March 30 when
New Zealand's government implemented shut-down
orders for most businesses to slow the COVID-19
pandemic.
Electron's first stage fired its
nine battery-powered Rutherford LOX/Kerosene engines
for 2 min 36 sec before shutting down and
separating. The second stage vacuum Rutherford
burned for 6 min 10 sec to reach an elliptical
transfer orbit, performing a battery "hot-swap"
after the first 3 min 49 sec of the burn. Payload
fairing separation took place at T+3 min 12 sec.
After a half-orbit coast, the Curie third stage
fired its engine for 1 min 36 sec to circularize the
orbit. Payload deployments occurred about one hour
after liftoff.
CZ-2C Oceansat Launch
China's CZ-2C launched Haiyang 1D, fourth in an
ocean survey satellite series, into orbit from
Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center on June 10, 2020.
Liftoff from LC 9 took place at 18:31 UTC. The two
stage, 192 tonne, hypergolic propellant rocket
boosted the 442 kg satellite into a sun synchronous
low Earth orbit. HY-1D will form China's first
marine civil service satellite constellation in
conjunction with already-orbited HY-1C.
It was the year's 40th known orbital launch
attempt worldwide, and the 36th success.
Falcon 9/Starlink 1 F7
The
65th Falcon 9 v1.2 to fly, boosted by first stage
B1049.5 on its fifth flight, launched the seventh
operational group of 60 Starlink internet satellites
from Cape Canaveral on June 4, 2020. Liftoff from
Space Launch Complex 40 took place at 01:25 UTC. The
Falcon 9 second stage performed a single, roughly 6
minute 12 second ascent burn to directly reach a
roughly 213 x 365 km x 53 deg deployment orbit
where, about 15 minutes after liftoff, the
60-satellite stack separated. The satellites were
expected to subsequently separate from each other
and move themselves to 550 km operational orbits.
This was the fourth direct ascent Starlink flight.
Total deployed
payload mass was about 15.6 metric tons (tonnes).
The flight increased the total number of orbited
Starlink satellites, both precursor and operational,
to 482, though about a dozen of the precursor
satellites are being retired and deorbited. A
constellation of thousands of the 260 kg, Redmond
Washington-built satellites is planned.
The
first stage, which previously boosted Telstar 18
VANTAGE, Iridium-8, Starlink 0.9, and Starlink 1-2
during 2018-2020, performed entry and landing burns
before landing on a refurbished "Just Read the
Instructions" downrange. It was the first "fifth"
landing for a Falcon 9 booster. The stage was
hot-fired on SLC 40 on May 13 with payload attached
in anticipation of a May 17 launch, but a tropical
depression affecting the landing zone forced the
launch to be delayed behind the Demo 2 crew launch
mission.
The launch took place on the 10th
anniversary of the first Falcon 9 launch, also from
SLC 40. There have been a total of 85 orbital Falcon 9
launches, three Falcon Heavy flights, and one
suborbital Falcon 9, with an
87th Falcon 9 lost during a prelaunch accident.
Falcon 9 launches included 5 "v1.0" Merlin 1C
powered types, 15 "v1.1" Merlin 1D types, and 65
"v1.2" Merlin 1D types with stretched second stages.
A v1.2 Falcon 9 was lost during the September 2016
pad accident along with its AMOS 6 payload.
CZ-2D Launch
China's CZ-2D,
serial number Y51, orbited Gaofen 9-02, a high
resolution imaging satellite, and Hede 4, a small
ship tracking satellite, from Jiuquan Satellite
Launch Center on May 31, 2020. Liftoff from LC
43/603 (also called 43/94) took place at 08:53 UTC.
The two-stage, hypergolic propellant rocket inserted
the satellites into sun synchronous low earth orbit.
It was
the first DF-5 based launch from Jiuquan this year,
following two launches by small solid-rocket-motor
based KZ-1A launch vehicles. CZ-2D rockets had also
launched, one apiece, from Taiyuan and Xichang this
year.
U.S. Crew Launch
NASA astronauts Doug Hurley
and Bob Behnken flew to orbit in a SpaceX Crew
Dragon atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space
Center on May 30, 2020. It was the third spaceflight
for both astronauts. Liftoff from LC 39 Pad A took
place at 19:22:45 UTC, following a weather scrub
attempt on May 27. The commercial Crew Dragon test
flight to the International Space Station was the
first U.S.-launched crewed mission since Space
Shuttle retired in 2011. Crew Dragon separated from
the Falcon 9 second stage about 12 minutes after
liftoff to begin its roughly 19 hour trip to dock
with ISS.
First stage B1058.1 fired its nine
Merlin 1D engines for 2 min 33 sec, aiming the
vehicle on a northeast trajectory off the eastern
U.S. coast, before shutting down and
separating. The stage performed entry and landing
burns before landing on the "Of Course I Still Love
You" drone ship about 9 min 22 sec after liftoff. The second
stage fired its single Merlin 1D Vacuum engine from
T+2 min 44 sec until T+8 min 47 sec to reach a roughly 190 x 205 km
low earth orbit inclined 51.6 deg to the equator.
Doug
Hurley and Bob Behnken Ride Crew Dragon to Orbit
The first stage was static fired at
McGregor, Texas, likely during August, 2019. It
performed a hot fire test at LC 39A on May 22, 2020
with Crew Dragon stacked atop the vehicle.
After reaching orbit, the crew named their Crew Dragon,
spacecraft number C206, "Endeavour" in honor of the Shuttle
orbiter in which they had previously flown to ISS. Crew
Dragon Endeavour docked successfully with ISS at 15:16 UTC
on May 31.
Crew Dragon "Endeavour" Approaches ISS on May 31
Crew Dragon C201 performed the Demo 1 flight to ISS in early 2019.
That spacecraft was then lost in an abort system ground test
explosion at the Cape. Crew Dragon C205 performed in In Flight Abort
test earlier this year from KSC LC 39A. C205 splashed down after its
successful abort, but will likely not fly again. C202 was a pressure
vessel structural test article. The status of C203 and C204 is unknown.
CZ-11 from Xichang
China's
four-stage solid fuel CZ-11 launched two small
"earth observation technology" satellites into low
earth orbit from Xichang Satellite Launch Center on
May 29, 2020. It was the first CZ-11 launch from
Xichang. Liftoff took place at 20:13 UTC.
Confirmation of a successful launch of XJS-G and
XJS-H came about one-half hour later.
It was the ninth known
CZ-11 flight since the type premiered on September
25, 2015. The 58 tonne rocket may be based on
China's DF-31 series solid fuel ballistic missile,
because the canister used to launch previous CZ-11
was similar to launch canisters used by the
road-mobile DF-31A. CZ-11 is reportedly 20.8 meters
long (other reports suggest 18.7 meters) and 2
meters in diameter with a 120 tonne liftoff thrust.
Its fourth stage has demonstrated in-space
maneuvering capability. CZ-11 may be able to lift
350 kg or more to sun synchronous orbit. On this
flight, CZ-11 was topped by a new, wider, 2.5 meter
diameter payload fairing.
LauncherOne Failure
Virgin
Orbit LauncherOne Launch Demo Ignition (Virgin Orbit)
Virgin
Orbit's LauncherOne suffered an inuagural Launch
Demo failure after drop release from Virgin Orbit's
Cosmic Girl 747 carrier aircraft off the California
coast on May 25, 2020. The failure occurred moments
after the 21.3 meter long, two-stage rocket's
LOX/Kerosene NewtonThree engine ignited, sometime
around 19:53 UTC at an altitude of about 10.7 km just
south of the Channel Islands, about 160 km southwest
of Long Beach. Cosmic Girl took off from Mojave Air
and Space Port with LauncherOne less than an hour
before the drop. Virgin Orbit announced that the
release from the aircraft was "clean", that
"LauncherOne maintained stability after release",
and that the company's NewtonThree engine ignited.
An "anomaly" then occurred "early in first stage
flight". Cosmic Girl returned safetly to
Mojave.
On May 27, Virgin Orbit provided more details, noting that the
flight was nominal for about 9 seconds after the drop.
Propellant settling thrusters fired about three seconds after
drop, followed two seconds later by NewtonThree main engine
ignition. The rocket initially pitched down, then began to
pull up, responding to its flight control system. About three or four seconds after ignition, for
reasons still to be determined, the engine stopped producing
thrust.
After igniting five seconds after
the drop, NewtonThree was to produce 33,339 kgf
thrust for about 2 min 55 sec. The second stage
NewtonFour engine would then have made about 2,268
kgf thrust for 6 min 7 sec to accelerate itself and
dummy payload either to a transfer orbit or to
near-orbital velocity. NewtonFour would have
restarted 31 min 26 sec after the drop, firing for
about 15 seconds to reach its insertion orbit.
Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit LauncherOne
development has lasted five years. The effort
included the creation and testing of the rocket
engines and stages, along with installing and
perfecting the drop-launch system.
Tundra 4 Launch
Russia's
Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat launched an early warning
satellite into orbit from Plesetsk Cosmodrome on May
22, 2020. Liftoff from Site 43 Pad 4 took place at
07:31 UTC. After firing to reach a low earth parking orbit,
the Fregat M stage fired two more
times during the 4.5 hour mission to lift its payload into an elliptical
“Molniya" orbit of approximately 1,620 x 38,500 km x
63.4 deg.
The satellite is the fourth Tundra
(EKS type) early warning satellite designed to
detect ballistic missile launches. It was the
seventh R-7 launch of the year, most among the
world's launch vehicles.
H-2B/HTV Finale
The ninth
and final H-2B boosted the HTV-9 cargo hauling
spacecraft for Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA) toward the International Space Station from
Tanegashima on May 20, 2020. Liftoff from Yoshinobu
Pad 2 took place at 17:31 UTC.
HTV-9, also
named Kounotori 9, weighed 16.5 tonnes or more at
liftoff. It carried 6.2 tonnes of cargo, including
4.3 tonnes pressurized and 1.9 tonnes unpressurized.
Cargo included six lithium-ion battery Orbital
Replacement Units to replace existing ISS
nickel-hydrogen batteries.
H-2B F-8 burned
four SRB-A3 solid motors for 1 min 48 sec to
augument the 2xLR-7A powered core's 5 min 44 sec
burn. The LE-5B powered second stage then fired for
8 min 11 sec to reach a low Earth orbit inclined
51.6 deg to the equator. Spacecraft separation took
place about 16 min 40 sec after liftoff. The second
stage subsequently performed a deorbit burn.
H-2B and HTV will
be replaced by H-3 and HTV-X, respectively.
Atlas
5 Launches X-37B
AV-081, an Atlas
5-501 with no solid boosters and a 5.4 meter
diameter payload fairing, orbited the United States
Space Force-7 (USSF-7) mission on the sixth flight
of an X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-6) from Cape
Canaveral, Florida on May 17, 2020. Liftoff from
Space Launch Complex 41 took place at 13:14 UTC. The
mission flew into a media blackout shortly after the
Centaur second stage RL10C-1 engine completed the
first of its two acknowledged burns. ULA
announced launch success about 1.5 hours after
liftoff.
AV-081
ascended on a northeast track consistent with
previous OTV flights that carried five tonne X-37B
spaceplanes into low earth orbits inclined about 40
degrees to the equator. OTV-6, believed to involve
the third flight of the first of two X-37B
airframes, included, for the first time, a service
module mounted aft of the spaceplane body. Although
a prelaunch payload integration photograph of the
X-37B was published, no images of the service module
were provided. The service module is likely an
expendable component that will separate before
reentry.
Though the primary mission of OTV-6
is classified, officials did state that FalconSat-8,
a U.S. Air Force Academy microsatellite, will be
released during the mission. OVT-6 also includes two
NASA radiation exposure experiments and a Naval
Research Laboratory experiment into solar power
transfer to Earth via. microwave.
KZ-1A Launch
China's
Kuaizhou 1A (KZ-1A) performed the 11th launch of the
KZ-1(A) family on May 12, 2020 from Jiuquan
Satellite Launch Center. The three-stage solid fuel
rocket, serial number Y6, lifted off from a mobile
launcher on a flat pad at 01:16 UTC. Two 93 kg
communication satellites, Xingyun 2-1 and 2-2, were
boosted to 557 x 573 km x 97.55 deg sun synchronous orbits.
They were the first two operational satellites for an L-band
communications constellation.
Expace Technology Co., Ltd.,
a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science & Industry
Corp, handled the launch as a commercial enterprise.
KZ-1A can loft 200kg into a 700 km sun synchronous
orbit, or up to 300 kg to lower inclincation low
earth orbits. It is 20 meters tall, 1.4 meters in
diameter, and weighs 30 tonnes at liftoff. A small
N2O4/MMH bipropellant insertion fourth stage likely
provided final orbit insertion. The fourth stage
also likely lowered its orbit after satellite
separation.
CZ-5B First Flight
CZ-5B Rollout
China
introduced a 1.5-stage version of its CZ-5 launch
vehicle, identified as CZ-5B, on May 5, 2020, with a
test flight from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on
Hainan Island off China's southern coast. Liftoff
from Pad 101 took place at 10:00 UTC. The mission
carried an uncrewed "New Generation Crewed
Spacecraft" (XZF Chinese abbreviation) to a roughly
162 x 377 km x 41.1 deg low Earth orbit within a
giant new 5.2 x 20.5 meter payload fairing. At least
one auxiliary payload was also orbited, an inflatable reentry heat shield named RCS.
CZ-5B Launch
The 53.7 meter tall rocket rose on the combined
1,080 tonnes of thrust produced by 10 engines; two
YF-77 gas generator engines on the 5-meter diameter
LH2/LOX core and two YF-100 staged-combustion
engines each on four 3.35 meter diameter
kerosene/LOX strap-on boosters. The boosters
separated about 173 seconds after liftoff. The core
stage burned all the way to orbit, shutting down
about 467 seconds after liftoff. Payload separation
took place at about T+483 seconds. The XZF
spacecraft, slated to fly a three-day mission before
reentering and landing on China's mainland, likely
weighed 21.6 tonnes, making this by-far China's
heaviest-ever payload to orbit.
CZ-5B is
intended to lift China's new space station modules.
It is designed to lift as much as 25 tonnes to low
earth orbit, making it more capable than Proton or
Ariane 5 and possibly matching or exceeding Delta 4
Heavy.
Progress MS-14
A Soyuz 2.1a launched Progress MS-14 from Baikonur
Site 31 Pad 6 on April 25, 2020. Liftoff took place
at 01:51 UTC. The robot cargo hauler spacecraft was
inserted into a 193 x 240 km x 51.6 deg orbit. It
reached the International Space Station in two
orbits, or just under 3.5 hours before docking.
The rocket, named "Victory", was adorned with
symbols commemorating the 75th anniversary of the
Soviet Union's victory over the Axis Powers during
World War 2.
Progress MS-14 carried almost
1,350 kg of dry cargo, about 700 kg of propellant,
for transfer to ISS, 420 kg of water, and 46 kg of
compressed air.
Falcon
9/Starlink 1 F6
A Falcon 9 boosted
by first stage B1051.4 on its fourth flight,
launched the sixth operational group of 60 Starlink
internet satellites from Kennedy Space Center on
April 22, 2020. Liftoff from Launch Complex 39 Pad A
took place at 19:30 UTC. The Falcon 9 second stage
performed a single, roughly 6 minute 12 second
ascent burn to directly reach an elliptical, 53 deg
deployment orbit where, about 15 minutes after
liftoff, the 60-satellite stack separated. The
satellites were expected to subsequently separate
from each other and move themselves to 550 km
operational orbits. This was the third direct ascent
Starlink flight.
Total deployed payload mass
was about 15.6 metric tons (tonnes). The flight
increased the total number of orbited Starlink
satellites, both precursor and operational, to 422,
though more than 10 of the precursor satellites are
already being retired and deorbited. A constellation
of thousands of the 260 kg, Redmond Washington-built
satellites is planned.
The first stage, which
previously boosted Crew Dragon DM-1, Radarsat
Constellation, and Starlink 1 F3 during 2019-2020,
performed entry and landing burns before landing on
"Of Course I Still Love You" downrange. The success
ended a string of two failed OSCILY landing
attempts. The stage was hot-fired at LC 39A on April
17, with payload attached.
Iran Orbits Satellite
On April 22, 2020, Iran achieved its first
successful orbital launch since Febraury 2, 2015.
The launch placed a military satellite named "Noor"
into a 426 x 444 km x 59.8 deg orbit. A
previously-unknown Qased launch vehicle performed
the ascent from a truck-trailer based
transporter/erector/launcher parked on a flat pad at
the Shahrud Missile Test Site in Iran's Central
Desert, possibly around 04:00 UTC. It was the first orbital launch attempt from
Shahrud, which is located at 36.200560 N, 55.333232
E.
Qased appeared to use a Shahab-3/Safir
derived liquid fueled first stage, topped by a
smaller diameter, possibly solid propellant second
stage. A smaller solid propellant third stage,
serving as an apogee kick motor, might have been
housed within the payload shroud.
CZ-3B/Palapa N1 Launch Failure
(Updated 04/11/20)
China's CZ-3B/E failed to orbit Indonesia's Palapa N1
communications satellite from Xichang Satellite
Launch Center on April 9, 2020. Liftoff from LC 2
took place at 11:46 UTC. The first two stages of
flight were normal, but the third stage failed to complete
its initial parking orbit insertion. One report suggested that
only one of the two third stage engines operated properly.
The upper stage
and satellite were observed reentering in the vicinity of
Saipan, more than 4,800 km downrange.
Palapa N1 was a 5,550 kg DFH-4 series
satellite designed to replace Papapa D in
geostationary orbit.
It was the first CZ-3B
failure since June 18, 2017, following 28
consecutive successes. The type has flown since
1996, failing four times in 84 launches.
Soyuz Crew Launch
A Soyuz 2.1a launched three
International Space Station crewmen in the Soyuz
MS-16 spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome on April
9, 2020. On board were NASA's Chris Cassidy and
Russia's Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. Liftoff
from Site 31 Pad 6 took place at 08:05 UTC,
beginning a planned four-orbit, six-hour fast track
ascent to the station.
It was the first
crewed launch by Soyuz 2.1a. Soyuz-FG had performed
the task since 2002. Soyuz 2.1a is essentially a
Soyuz-FG with a digital control computer and
inertial measurement unit replacing the previous
analog systems. The new control systems allow Soyuz
to perform in-flight roll and dog-leg maneuvers. Previously, R-7 launchers had to be
rotated on the pad to the proper flight azimuth
prior to launch. Soyuz 2.1a has been flying uncrewed
missions since 2006 and began handling Progress
cargo missions to ISS in 2015.
The launch was carried out with little fanfare in the
midst of the ongoing, world-wide Covid-19 pandemic. Family members
were not allowed to travel to the launch site, for example.
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