Space News by Jason Rainbow May 1, 2023
SpaceX launched the Americas-focused ViaSat-3 broadband satellite on a Falcon Heavy rocket April 30 following delays partly caused by severe weather that included lightning and tornado warnings.
The Falcon Heavy lifted off 8:26 p.m. Eastern from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, toward geostationary orbit (GEO) in the rocket’s sixth flight since its debut in 2018.
Both side boosters separated from the core stage just over three minutes after lift-off. The boosters had previously supported nine earlier missions in total, however, SpaceX decided not to attempt to recover them this time to improve the rocket’s performance.
The primary 6,400-kilogram ViaSat-3 Americas payload was deployed around four hours and 32 minutes after lift-off, followed by two rideshare payloads: Arcturus, the first broadband satellite built by Californian venture Astranis at under 400 kilograms, and a cubesat from Washington-based Gravity Space with a communications payload.
The mission had at one point been scheduled for April 18 but was delayed for undisclosed reasons to April 26 following a static-fire test. SpaceX then delayed the April 26 launch by a day to complete data reviews.
However, severe weather April 27 disrupted that mission. Lightning struck the tower at the Falcon Heavy’s LC-39A launchpad during the storm, prompting SpaceX engineers to conduct checks on the rocket, its payloads, and ground systems.
SpaceX aborted another launch attempt April 28 at T-minus 59 seconds for reasons it did not disclose. With severe weather conditions forecast again for April 29, the mission was bumped to April 30.
Long time comingThe delays were part of a long-running series of setbacks for Viasat, which had originally planned to deploy the first of three ViaSat-3 satellites in 2019 — before being caught up in production and supply chain issues compounded by the pandemic.
More:
https://spacenews.com/spacex-falcon-heavy-launches-first-viasat-3-satellite/
