Thanks to some tactical hurricane-dodging, Bob is taking the very scenic route out to the Galaxy 31 & 32 fairing recovery LZ.Booster will be expended.
SpaceX is targeting Saturday, November 12 for launch of the Intelsat G-31/G-32 mission to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The 120-minute launch window opens at 11:06 a.m. ET (16:06 UTC). A backup launch opportunity is available on Sunday, November 13 with the same window.The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched Dragon's first crew demonstration mission, the RADARSAT Constellation Mission, SXM-7, and 10 Starlink missions.A live webcast of this mission will begin about 15 minutes prior to liftoff.
Galaxy 31 and 32 are set for launch tomorrow at 11:06 a.m. EST. This continues the Galaxy fleet refresh plan. They are 3rd and 4th in a total of 7 new Galaxy satellites launching in the next 6 months. This launch follows G-33 and 34 launched last month.
Is the Galaxy 31/32 stack mass the same as the Galaxy 33/34 stack (7.35 metric tons)?
For that mission, SpaceX will not recover the Falcon 9 booster, committing all of the rocket’s propellant to sending Galaxy 31 and 32 into as high of an orbit as possible. “Those satellites, Galaxy 31 and 32, are built by Maxar. They’re a little heavier, so we decided go for an expendable launch to get the extra performance,” Froeliger said.
And meanwhile, at SLC-40, Falcon 9 B1051-14 has been raised vertical ahead of tomorrow's Galaxy-31 & 32 launch!nsf.live/spacecoast
Any idea why this is launching at 11:00 local time? Normally, comstats are launched from the Cape late in the evening. Since they head east, this means the parking orbit, GTO burn, and coast to separation, all happen during the night, and then the satellite emerges into light. This gets light to the solar panels, and power, as soon as possible and through the whole first GTO orbit.My only thought is that perhaps this is an ascending node GTO injection, where they wait for the second equator crossing. This will be 180o from the first, and then lighting conditions would be the roughly the same as 23:00 local time launch.
