California dreamin’.
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SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, containing the Canadian Space Agency’s Radarsat trio of Earth observation satellites on Wednesday. The broadcast will be telecast live on SpaceX’s YouTube channel. If you’re keen to follow along, we have all the details you need right here.
Canada’s three Radarsat satellites, shaped like old rubber stamps, will gather data about the nation’s coasts and waterways to help ships navigate the Arctic, provide agriculture solutions and help first responders save lives, according to the agency. The dimensions of the satellites are such that they’re almost as big as a Tesla Roadster, but they’re only half as heavy. Eventually the satellites will settle into an orbit around 600 kilometers (around 370 miles) above the Earth.
For SpaceX, it will be another flight for the Falcon 9 rocket which delivered the Crew Dragon to the International Space Station in March. The first stage booster will return to land at Vandenberg approximately 10 minutes after liftoff.
The launch window opens on Wednesday, June 12 at 7:17 a.m. PT and closes 13 minutes later, at 7:30 a.m. PT. Like most launches, a backup window will open 24 hours later, on June 13, should something go awry during the first launch window. The satellites will deploy at 54 minutes into the flight.
If you want to follow along live, SpaceX is streaming a webcast of the launch. The broadcast will kick off 15 minutes before liftoff. You can watch below:
After the Radarsat mission, SpaceX will launch the Falcon Heavy for the third time on the STP-2 mission. That’s scheduled to take place on June 24 (with a backup launch window on June 25). It is regarded as one of the most challenging launches in SpaceX history and will be attempting to deploy a suite of satellites into orbit for the Department of Defense. It will also be carrying the Planetary Society’s experimental solar sail, LightSail 2.
Provided the Falcon Heavy core can be recovered in that mission, it will be the first such success for SpaceX, which was unable to keep the core from toppling over in rough seas during the Arabsat mission.