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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches Qatari satellite from Kennedy Space Center, lands at sea

James Dean
Florida Today

Rumbling from a Kennedy Space Center launch pad that could host astronauts again by next summer, a Falcon 9 rocket blasted off Thursday afternoon on SpaceX’s 18th flight of the year, matching the company's high mark set last year.

On time at 3:46 p.m., nine Merlin engines ignited under a booster that had launched a mission in July to lift the two-stage, 230-foot rocket from Launch Complex 39A with Es’hail-2, a Qatari communications satellite.

Springs shoved the satellite safely into orbit from the rocket's upper stage less than 33 minutes later, after the booster had touched down for the second time on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, making it available for a potential third flight.

SpaceX has now landed 31 boosters in less than three years.

The next time a Falcon 9 launches from Kennedy Space Center, it could be the first test flight, without a crew on board, of a Dragon capsule designed to carry astronauts.

NASA this week said that uncrewed demonstration mission to the International Space Station remains on track for January.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A with a Qatari communications satellite on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018.

SpaceX and Boeing may be ready to launch test pilots as soon as next June — astronauts' first flights from U.S. soil since NASA's final shuttle mission in 2011.

Thursday’s launch was the first by a Falcon 9 from KSC since the installation of an access arm that astronauts will cross before strapping in to Crew Dragons. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program did not require SpaceX to use the pad, but said the satellite mission provided valuable experience in advance of crew launches.

“Our NASA engineers and launch teams will be monitoring the launch as part their normal insight activities,” said Cheryl Warner, a NASA spokeswoman. “Launches from LC39A are a great opportunity to exercise the launch pad and procedures that will be used for commercial crew flights next year.”

Es’hail-2 will join Es’hail-1, launched in 2013, delivering telecommunications services including news and sports broadcasting to the Middle East and Northern Africa for stations including Al Jazeera and beIN Sports.

The satellite also makes history as the first to carry amateur radio transponders to a high geostationary orbit, where satellites match the speed of Earth’s rotation and appear from the ground to hover in fixed positions over Earth.

Ham operators until now have had to catch brief passes by satellites in low orbits with smaller coverage areas. Es’hail-2’s high perch, in contrast, will allow it to see one-third of the planet all the time for the 15 or more years it is expected to operate.

That will enable ham radio operators from as far apart as Brazil and Thailand to communicate with each other, exchanging voice or Morse code messages as well as digital TV images — another ‘first’ in that orbit. The satellite’s footprint does not include the United States, where amateurs hope one day to have access to a similar satellite.

The nonprofit Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation in Germany, or AMSAT-DL, led the project in partnership with the satellite’s owner, Es’hailSat, and the Qatar Amateur Radio Society. 

“The idea behind it is to promote education in the area of engineering and space among young people and engineers,” Peter Guelzow, the organization’s president, told FLORIDA TODAY. “And another big factor for Qatar is indeed disaster communications in case of a catastrophe, and in general the positive way amateur radio operators worldwide communicate, learn from each other and get friends, no matter which religion or politics.”

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SpaceX may be just days away from achieving another important milestone — the third flight by a Falcon 9 booster. The company is planning to launch more than 60 small satellites from California as soon as Monday, Nov. 19.

Then in December, SpaceX plans an International Space Station resupply mission and its first launch of a Global Positioning System satellite for the Air Force from Cape Canaveral.

The Eastern Range also awaits an update on the status of a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, after its scrubbed first attempt last week to air-launch NASA’s ICON science mission.

Contact Dean at 321-917-4534 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SpaceTeamGo.

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