SpaceX to expend Falcon 9 booster to launch Spainsat NG 2 communications satellite tv for pc – Spaceflight Now

A SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage will fly Thursday for the twenty first and closing time — a uncommon expendable mission for the corporate’s reusable rocket, which can deploy a communications satellite tv for pc for Spain.

The launch was initially scheduled for Wednesday night time, however was delayed 24 hours for causes not disclosed by SpaceX. The rocket was sighted on the launch pad Wednesday morning, but it surely returned to its meeting hangar earlier than rolling out once more.

SpaceX mentioned the Falcon 9 first-stage booster won’t be recovered on this mission “due to the additional performance required to deliver this payload to orbit”. The rocket won’t be fitted with touchdown legs or grid fins as they don’t seem to be wanted. The weight financial savings from eliminating this {hardware} will add to the rocket’s carry capability. The two halves of the payload fairing are anticipated to be recovered after parachuting into the Atlantic Ocean.

The SpainSat NG 2 satellite tv for pc, clocking in with a totally fueled mass of 6.1 tons (13,448 lbs.), shall be flown to a geosynchronous switch orbit with deployment scheduled greater than 35 minutes after launch. The satellite tv for pc will then maneuver itself to geostationary orbit.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is scheduled throughout a four-hour launch window that opens at 9:30 p.m. EDT (0130 UTC).

Spaceflight Now could have stay protection starting about an hour previous to liftoff.



The forty fifth Weather Squadron forecast a higher than 95 % likelihood for favorable climate through the launch window with no particular meteorological issues.

Assuming that there isn’t one other launch delay past Thursday, this shall be 134th orbital launch of 2025 for SpaceX, tying the whole variety of launches it achieved for all of 2024. The firm is hoping to realize greater than 170 launches this 12 months.

Seeing double

The SpainSat Next Generation (NG) 2 satellite tv for pc is the second of a pair of geostationary satellites managed by Spain-based Hisdesat. The SpainSat NG 1 satellite tv for pc was launched on Jan. 29, 2025 on one other Falcon 9 rocket that was expended and commenced working on the 30 levels West place on Aug. 11.

SpainSat NG 2 will function at 29 levels East. Both satellites have a 15-year nominal working life.

The pair of satellites have been constructed on Airbus Defence and Space’s Eurostar Neo satellite tv for pc bus and have a wingspan of almost 50 meters (164 ft.).

Funding for the satellite tv for pc got here partly from a 74 million euro ($86 million) funding from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities) by way of the Agencia Espacial Española (Spanish Space Agency) and the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológica y la Innovación (Center for Technological Development and Innovation).

“This satellite will place the Spanish industry at the top of Europe in the field of advanced secure communication systems and today it is the most innovative and advanced communications satellite on our continent, and a palpable example of the Ministry’s commitment to development, progress and innovation,” mentioned the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, as translated by Google Translate.

While the primary operate of the satellite tv for pc is to supply safe communications for the Government of Spain, Hisdesat can even provide performance to the European Union by way of the Govsatcom program and NATO.

These two satellites function within the X-, Ka Mil- and UHF-bands. Airbus was accountable for the X-band payload whereas Thales Alenia Space’s Spanish workplace constructed the Military Ka- and UHF-band payloads.

The mixture of the 2 satellites will present protection that reaches from the United States in North America to Singapore in Asia.