SpaceX plans to launch 13 satellites for the Space Development Agency’s “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture” Transport (11 satellites) and Tracking (2 satellites) layers. This is a low Earth orbit constellation consisting of two orbital planes in 950 km circular orbits at 89.5° inclination. This launch, designated Tranche 0, Flight 2, is a technology demonstration for the project, whose goals include tracking of ballistic and hypersonic glide missiles heading for targets in the U.S. The first batch of satellites in the series, Tranche 0, Flight 1, was launched on 2023-04-02.
The launch is scheduled for 2023-09-02 at 14:25 UTC from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage booster, B1063, will be making its thirteenth flight after a 57 day turn-around from its last mission. The first stage booster will return for a landing near the launch site at Vandenberg.
Here is a pre-launch preview from Everyday Astronaut with more information on the satellites to be launched.
It is amazing what becomes economically feasible from the greatly reduced cost to orbit possible with a re-usable rocket. To beat that drum one more time – the “US Government” had paid to demonstrate that technology three decades ago with the DC-X Clipper which made a number of successful launch & land tests (although it was not designed to put anything in orbit – it was a technology demonstrator, a highly successful technology demonstrator). But it did eventually have one failed landing, and then the “US Government” (i.e. the bureaucrats spending Other People’s Money) walked away from reusable rockets.
So here we are, 30 years later, with the “US Government” dependent on a really bright guy from South Africa who was (and still is) prepared to carry on despite numerous disappointing failures along the way. Do you think there might be a message in that history for the over-lawyered risk-averse bureaucrats of the “US Government” and the politicians who supposedly ride herd on them?
As is usual for spooky-spooky launches, SpaceX showed no images from the second stage or of payload fairing jettison and ended the Webcast right after the booster landing. Then, the Space Development Agency, for whom the launch was conducted, released a picture of the hush-hush payloads inside the (half empty) payload fairing before launch.
