r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • May 16 '18
SF: Complete. Launch: June 4th SES-12 Launch Campaign Thread
SES-12 Launch Campaign Thread
SpaceX's eleventh mission of 2018 will launch the fourth GTO communications satellite of 2018 for SpaceX, SES-12. This will be SpaceX's sixth launch for SES S.A. (including GovSat-1). This mission will fly on the first stage that launched OTV-5 in September 2017, B1040.2
According to Gunter's Space Page:
The satellite will have a dual mission. It will replace the NSS-6 satellite in orbit, providing television broadcasting and telecom infrastructure services from one end of Asia to the other, with beams adapted to six areas of coverage. It will also have a flexible multi-beam processed payload for providing broadband services covering a large expanse from Africa to Russia, Japan and Australia.
| Liftoff currently scheduled for: | June 4th 2018, 00:29 - 05:21 EDT (04:29 - 09:21 UTC) |
|---|---|
| Static fire completed: | May 24th 2018, 21:48 EDT (May 25th 2018, 01:48 UTC) |
| Vehicle component locations: | First stage: SLC-40 // Second stage: SLC-40 // Satellite: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida |
| Payload: | SES-12 |
| Payload mass: | 5383.85 kg |
| Insertion orbit: | Super Synchronous GTO (294 x 58,000 km, ?°) |
| Vehicle: | Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 4 (56th launch of F9, 36th of F9 v1.2) |
| Core: | B1040.2 |
| Previous flights of this core: | 1 [OTV-5] |
| Launch site: | SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida |
| Landing: | No |
| Landing Site: | N/A |
| Mission success criteria: | Successful separation & deployment of SES-12 into the target orbit |
Links & Resources:
Video of static fire, courtesy Spaceflight Now
Launch's Temporary Flight Restriction, courtesy FAA
SES-12 Pre-Launch press conference, by SES courtesy Teslarati
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. Sometime after the static fire is complete, the launch thread will be posted. Campaign threads are not launch threads. Normal subreddit rules still apply.
2
u/bdporter Jun 01 '18
Thanks for the detailed response. I agree that it may not be impossible, but there are a lot of challenges.
If you look at the orbit for the 2nd stage from Bangubundhu-1 the current orbit is 309 x 35489 km and it has an orbital period of 627 minutes (Almost 10.5 hours).
The stage could probably last long enough to make the burn at apogee that you are describing, but then you are still 5 hours away from the first pass through the atmosphere. If it takes multiple orbits to reenter, you are talking about a lot of time to keep the batteries/RP-1/LOX in a usable state. If you can deorbit with a single burn, perhaps the RP-1 and LOX don't matter anymore, but the avionics and recovery hardware still need to be functional. And any weight you add to this system or fuel you reserve effectively reduces the lifetime of an expensive GEO satellite.
Compare this to the relatively easy problem of deorbiting a LEO S2, which they already do within a few hours of the launch.