SpaceX Falcon 9 : SXM-7 : CC SLC-40 : December 13, 2020 (17:30 UTC)

[Steven Pietrobon]

T+8 minutes.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Cutoff.

Touchdown!

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/kyle_m_photo/status/1338176683250167808

Beautiful liftoff of falcon 9 for SXM-7.  #SpaceX #Falcon9

Edit to add:

https://twitter.com/booster_buddies/status/1338178965924696064

And liftoff!
The @SpaceX lifts the @SIRIUSXM satellite into orbit.
The drone ship hosted a successful landing as well today.

[Steven Pietrobon]

T+10 minutes. Upcoming events.

00:26:03 2nd stage engine restarts
00:26:47 2nd stage engine cutoff (SECO-2)
00:31:39 SXM-7 deployment

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1338176923323658245

Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship

[Steven Pietrobon]

Expected LOS Bermuda.

[Steven Pietrobon]

T+15 minutes. Over the Atlantic Ocean.

[Steven Pietrobon]

T+20 minutes. Heading towards Africa.

[Steven Pietrobon]

AOS Gabon.

T+25 minutes. One minute and three seconds to second ignition which lasts for 44 seconds.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Ignition!

[Steven Pietrobon]

Cutoff!

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/nasaspaceflight/status/1338181297831866371

SES-2 complete. Nominal orbit insertion.

[Steven Pietrobon]

T+30 minutes. One minute and 39 seconds to spacecraft deploy.

[cscott]

OCISLY.

T-10 minutes.

I think the announcer said this was JRTI when it landed.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Separation!

[Chris Bergin]

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1338182628583886850

[cscott]

A little bit more end-over-end rotation of the satellite there after deploy than I would have expected.

[Steven Pietrobon]

25th launch this year. End of SpaceX coverage.

Congratulations to SpaceX and SiriusXM for the successful launch!

[ugordan]

25th launch this year.

... and only the 2nd launch where the booster was on its 7th flight if I'm not missing something. First for a non-Starlink customer, certainly.

I wonder if the customer got a huge discount on this or whether they're really confident in booster reuse. Good news either way.

[Steven Pietrobon]

Looks like a sub-GTO flight requiring 2206 m/s to get to GSO. Spacecraft mass is about 7 t, while reusable GTO capability is 5.5 t, so as expected.

http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/space/speed.zip

SpaceX speed calculator by Steven S. Pietrobon. 4 May 2019.
Enter negative perigee height to exit program.
Enter negative final orbit for geosynchronous orbit.

Enter initial perigee height (km): 249
Enter SpaceX speed (km/h): 33682
Enter initial orbit inclination (deg): 27

Estimated inertial speed = 9786.7 m/s
Estimated apogee height = 19515.7 km

Enter required inclination change (deg): 27
Enter final orbit height (km): -1
Geosynchronous altitude = 35786.0 km

Burn at   249.0 km: theta1 =  0.00 deg, dv1 =  409.1 m/s
Burn at 35786.0 km: theta2 = 27.00 deg, dv2 = 1800.3 m/s
dv = 2209.4 m/s

Burn at   249.0 km: theta1 =  0.29 deg, dv1 =  412.2 m/s
Burn at 35786.0 km: theta2 = 26.71 deg, dv2 = 1794.1 m/s
dv = 2206.3 m/s