SpaceX: SES-18 and SES-19 Launch

SES’s last launch, on 2022-10-04, was SES-20 and SES-21 on a ULA Atlas V, which delivered the satellites directly to near-geostationary orbit using the Atlas V Centaur upper stage. SpaceX has previously delivered satellites directly to geostationary orbit (USSF-67 on 2023-01-15), but that required a Falcon Heavy; Falcon 9 does not have the payload capacity to deliver two 3500 kg satellites to geostationary orbit. These satellites, using the Northrop Grumman GEOStar-3 [PDF] satellite bus, will use their own bi-propellant apogee engines to insert themselves into their operational orbits.

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