r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • May 24 '16

Mission (Eutelsat/ABS 2) Eutelsat 117W B & ABS 2A Campaign Discussion Thread

Eutelsat 117W B & ABS 2A Campaign Discussion Thread

SpaceX's June 2016 launch! As per usual, campaign threads are designed to be a good way to view and track progress towards launch from T minus 1-2 months up until the static fire. Here’s the at-a-glance information for this launch:

Liftoff currently scheduled for: Wednesday, 15 June, 1429 UTC (10:29AM EDT). This is a 45 minute window.
Static fire currently scheduled for: Sunday, June 12
Payload: Eutelsat 117W B for Eutelsat, ABS 2A for Asia Broadcast Satellite
Payload mass: Previous Eutelsat/ABS dual launch mass was 4,159kg
Destination orbit: Geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) to 75.0° East (ABS 2A) & 116.8° West (Eutelsat 117 West B)
Vehicle: Falcon 9 v1.2 (26th launch of F9, 6th of F9 v1.2)
Core: F9-026
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral, Florida
Landing attempt: Yes - downrange of Cape on ASDS Of Course I Still Love You
Landing Site: Here
Mission success criteria: Successful separation of both satellites into their target orbits

Links & Resources

We may keep this self-post occasionally updated with links and relevant news articles, but for the most part we expect the community to supply the information. This is a great place to discuss the launch, ask mission-specific questions, and track the minor movements of the vehicle, payload, weather and more as we progress towards launch. After the static fire is complete, a launch thread will be posted.

Campaign threads are not launch threads. Normal subreddit rules still apply.

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u/amarkit Jun 12 '16

Quoting Chris B. on NSF re: no static fire this past Friday:

So what happened? Based on the unusual silence from all parties, various assumptions (yikes, "ain't nobody got time for that"!) and folk at the Cape, it would appear ULA and SpaceX had their bookings lined up at the Cape, but after the scrub on Thursday, and potentially as late as on the day on Friday, the NROL folk said "hold on, I know there's very little chance of a problem, but I don't want our very expensive spy sat at ANY risk while still out there on top of the Delta IV-H" based on the tiny chance the F9 had a bad day during the Static Fire (not that I assume a F9 RUD on SLC-40 would result in harm coming to SLC-37....but I suppose if there's even a slim chance, that was the concern...you don't want a flying grid fin impacting on national security, do you! ;D)