SpaceX closed a record year by launching its 26th Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday, the second in less than a week, to launch a satellite from the National Classified Reconnaissance Office.
The payload of the NROL-108 came as an additional surprise to the SpaceX launch manifesto. The builder and purpose of the satellite are mysteries, reminiscent of the equally mysterious The payload of “Zuma” launched by SpaceX in January 2018. Zuma got lost in some kind of setback shortly after arriving in space and no details have ever appeared about his mission, not even which agency the it had.
In any case, SpaceX’s year-end mission began dramatically, as the first stage of the Falcon 9 made its fifth flight, giving life at 9:00 am ET, setting aside the slender rocket from the historic 39A block at the Kennedy Space Center at the peak of 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
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The launch came two days later than expected due to higher-than-normal pressure in the liquid oxygen tank of the second stage of the rocket that caused a last-minute “automatic abortion” on Thursday. SpaceX did not provide any additional details about the problem or how it was resolved before the explosive Saturday.
The NROL-108 payload was launched on a general trajectory to the northeast. It was headed into low orbit or was a relatively light satellite, or both, because in the first stage it had enough fuel left after rising from the lower atmosphere to reverse course and land back in the Space Force. Cap Canaveral. Station
It was the 22nd return landing at the SpaceX launch site, the 19th in Florida and three more in California. Overall, the company has recovered 70 first-stage boosters since December 2015, including 48 aboard offshore drones.
SpaceX ended its launch comment on the booster touchdown and, as is usual with classified NRO missions, no details were provided on the performance of the second stage, the alleged deployment of the NROL-108 satellite or its initial orbit. .
“NROL-108 has a national security payload designed, built and operated by the National Reconnaissance Office,” the NRO said in response to a Spaceflight Now consultation. “Additional details about the payload and its mission are protected. The name or names of the contractor or contractors associated with the construction of this payload are also protected.”
SpaceX
Amateur satellite analysts trying to track rated payloads had no information about the nature of the satellite.
It was the third NRO satellite launched this year, including one launched on top of one United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket on November 13 and another launched by ULA Delta 4 Heavy rocket on December 10th.
Despite a pandemic that slowed work on critical projects in the aerospace industry in 2020, SpaceX released a record 26 Falcon 9s, including a suborbital test flight, which raised the company’s total to 103 since its debut. rocket in 2010, 106 including three triples. Falcon Heavies cores. The company’s previous year’s record, set in 2018, was 21.
SpaceX’s 2020 flights included 14 Starlink Internet broadcast satellite launches, two cargo delivery missions at the International Space Station, the first two piloted flights of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule and a dramatic in-flight test of the capsule’s emergency abortion system.
The crew’s dragons took six astronauts to the International Space Station, two on a test flight that released May 30th and exploded on August 2 and the fourth on the first operational flight of the ferry, release on November 15th. The four “crew 1” astronauts are expected to remain high until next May.