SpaceX launched the Korea 425 reconnaissance satellite and 24 other rideshare payloads Friday morning at 10:19 am PT from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
That is the primary of 5 reconnaissance satellites from the South Korean Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). As a result of customer requests, no video was shown of the payloads at fairing separation.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/iXndCsnEFL
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 1, 2023
The satellite was launched right into a Sun-synchronous orbit and, once in orbit and thru the correct checkouts, will likely be able to 30 to 50 centimeters of image resolution and can make an orbit about every two hours.
This isn’t the primary South Korean military payload launched by SpaceX, they previously launched the Anasis 2 military communications satellite for the country back in July 2020.
There have been 24 other various payloads on this mission hitching a ride to space, including the very first Irish satellite, EIRSAT-1, which was built by students of the University College Dublin which partnered with the European Space Agency’s Fly Your Satellite program.
Among the other payloads onboard include satellites from Space BD, Planet IQ, D-Orbit, SITAEL, and York Space Systems.
As for the Falcon 9 on this mission, that is the primary time SpaceX has launched one other customer payload on a Falcon that has launched greater than 15 times.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on Landing Zone 4, completing our 250th landing of a Falcon first stage booster pic.twitter.com/ZkOjq4hNRy
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) December 1, 2023
Booster 1061 took its seventeenth trip to space, and back. It has previously launched seven Starlink missions, eight (Crew 1 & 2) astronauts to the ISS, the CRS-23 mission to the ISS, and 6 other various payloads.
After stage separation, B1061 flipped around and performed a boostback burn to return to Landing Zone 4, which is just 1,400 feet away from the launch pad. SpaceX announced that this was their 250th landing of a Falcon first stage, however it technically may very well be 251st should you count the Falcon Heavy center core that successfully landed throughout the Arabsat 6A mission but later tipped over before it may very well be secured resulting from rough seas.
SpaceX also used flight-proven payload fairings, which is now the norm for his or her mission, these fairings flew for the fifth and sixth time and will likely be recovered from the Pacific Ocean.