SpaceX Space Development Agency Transport & Tracking Tranche 0 Launch

SCANALYZER The Happening World
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SpaceX plans to launch 14 satellites for the Space Development Agency’s “Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture” Transport (10 satellites) and Tracking (4 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 1, 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 launch is scheduled for 2023-04-02 at 14:29 UTC from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage booster, B1075, will be making its second flight after a 73 day turn-around from its last mission. The first stage booster will return for a landing near the launch site at Vandenberg. Weather is forecast as 90% favourable for launch.

Here is a pre-launch preview from Everyday Astronaut with more information on the satellites to be launched.

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The countdown was aborted around the three second mark before liftoff. It looked to me like there was a puff of smoke from the engines, so the cutoff may have been triggered by something in the engine start process. (It was difficult to see what was happening with the engines because water from the “rainbird” deluge system obscured the view from the angle shown in the Webcast.)

If the problem can be identified and fixed in time, there is another launch opportunity tomorrow, 2023-03-31, at the same time (14:29 UTC).

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The launch has been rescheduled for 14:29 UTC on 2022-03-31. I have updated the date, time, and Webcast player in the main post accordingly.

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spacex_2023-03-31

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spacex_2023-04-01

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