SpaceX will launch an Indonesian communications satellite to orbit and land the returning rocket at sea this evening (June 18), and you possibly can watch the motion live.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the SATRIA-1 satellite is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today during a 178-minute window that opens at 6:04 p.m. EDT (2204 GMT).
You may watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the corporate. Coverage is predicted to start about quarter-hour before launch.
If all goes in accordance with plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical touchdown on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which might be stationed within the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. The touchdown is scheduled to happen about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.
It is going to be the twelfth launch and landing for this particular booster, in accordance with a SpaceX mission description. Amongst those previous efforts were 4 Dragon missions to the International Space Station for NASA, two of them crewed and two of them robotic resupply flights.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage will proceed carrying SATRIA-1 to geosynchronous transfer orbit, ultimately deploying the satellite there slightly below 37 minutes after liftoff.
SATRIA-1 (whose name is brief for “Satellite of the Republic of Indonesia”) might be operated for the Indonesian government by the Indonesian company PSN.
The $550 million spacecraft “is envisioned to spice up connectivity inclusion within the country, providing free web connection to 150,000 public facilities, including schools, regional government offices and health facilities,” in accordance with The Jakarta Post.
“SATRIA-1 could have a throughput capability of 150 billion bits per second, 3 times the capability of the nine telecommunication satellites that Indonesia currently uses,” the outlet added.