Update Wednesday at 8 a.m. ET: Both rockets hit their immediate launch windows on Wednesday morning, with the Ariane 5 booster taking off from Kourou, French Guiana under mostly sunny skies and the Falcon 9 rocket taking off from California through a thick layer of fog. The upper stages of both missiles are now in the coastal phase before deploying their satellite payloads.
After the launches, attention turned to SpaceX’s attempt to restore the payload first stage and fairing. The atmosphere off the coast, where the Just read the instructions droneship was stationed 235 km away from the launch pad, had high wind shear. This means that wind speeds and directions varied at different heights, making it challenging to get back to the ground via a more or less straight path. This, coupled with the high seas, made for the “worst” conditions in which SpaceX has ever attempted to land a rocket, said launch commentator John Insprucker.
The onboard cameras didn’t clearly capture the landing, but afterwards, SpaceX said the rocket did indeed make a safe landing on the drone ship. Less certain was the fate of the cargo cockpit amid the bad weather conditions. “This is an experimental effort, we’re still learning how to pull a fairing out of the air,” Insprucker said.
Original mail: The Western Hemisphere could host two launches within 15 minutes on Wednesday morning as both Arianespace and SpaceX prepare for satellite delivery missions. Launches are currently scheduled between 7:25 a.m. ET (11:25 UTC) and 7:39 a.m. ET (11:39 UTC).
The first is Arianespace, with a mission launched from Kourou in French Guiana, across the Atlantic. This flight of the Ariane 5 ES rocket – the third mission of the Ariane 5 fleet in 2018 – will send four Galileo satellites into medium orbit (at an altitude of 22,922 km) for the European Commission. These satellites will be part of Europe’s own global navigation system constellation.
Note that this is the 99th launch of the Ariane 5 rocket, which first flew in 1996. This rocket will continue to fly until 2022, after which Arianespace and the European Space Agency will gradually phase out the booster in favor of the Ariane 6- rocket, designed for lower-cost operations to compete with SpaceX in the commercial launch market.
The livestream of the Ariane launch below should start about 25 minutes before launch.
Ariane 5 launch of Galileo satellites.
Speaking of SpaceX, its rocket has a launch time less than 15 minutes after the Ariane 5’s scheduled launch. to bring above the earth.
This will be the third flight of the Block 5 version of the Falcon 9 rocket, and when the vehicle launches Wednesday it would be the company’s second launch in just over two days.
Wednesday’s flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California will also include two separate recovery attempts. The Just read the instructions droneship will serve as a mobile landing pad for the first stage of the Falcon 9, and the smaller Mr Steven ship – now equipped with a larger net – will attempt to capture half of the missile’s payload.
The Falcon 9 webcast should begin 15 minutes before its scheduled launch time — or just past the time the Ariane 5 rocket takes off.
Falcon 9 launch from Iridium satellites.