The United Launch Alliance (ULA) is preparing for the second flight of its Vulcan Centaur rocket this week. The mission will see Vulcan carry an inert payload to orbit alongside some experiments and demonstrations and will complete its certification process with the U.S. Space Force (USSF).
SpaceX has delayed missions this week following an off-nominal deorbit burn of a Falcon 9 second stage following the Crew-9 mission. The stage landed in the South Pacific Ocean but outside of the defined reentry corridor. While the team investigates, the company has rescheduled Monday’s planned launch of its OneWeb mission out of Vandenberg to next week, while a Starlink mission will now fly from the Cape this week on Saturday, Oct. 5.
Another Falcon 9 is being prepared to launch the Hera mission for the European Space Agency (ESA) from Florida. With two cubesats onboard, Hera will study the results of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) asteroid deflection test, which impacted the Dimorphos asteroid two years ago. The pad at Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) remains configured for the upcoming Europa Clipper mission, which will fly on a Falcon Heavy next week. Both of these interplanetary missions have launch windows that extend to the end of the month in case of any further delays.
Leave a reply