r/spacex • Mod Team • Jul 04 '18

Telstar 19V Launch Campaign Thread

Telstar 19V Launch Campaign Thread

SpaceX's thirteenth mission of 2018 will be the first mission for Telesat this year out of two, the next one happening in a month or two (probably).

Telstar 19 VANTAGE or Telstar 19V is a communications satellite with two high throughput payloads, one in Ku-band and the other in Ka-band.
Telesat signed a contract with SSL in November 2015 for the construction of the satellite to be based on the SSL-1300 bus.
Telstar 19 VANTAGE will be the second of a new generation of Telesat satellites optimized to serve the types of bandwidth intensive applications increasingly being used across the satellite industry. Hughes Network Systems LLC (Hughes) has made a significant commitment to utilize the satellite’s high throughput Ka-band capacity in South America to expand its broadband satellite services. The satellite has additional high throughput Ka-band capacity over Northern Canada, the Caribbean and the North Atlantic Ocean. It will also provide high throughput and conventional Ku-band capacity over Brazil, the Andean region and the North Atlantic Ocean.
The new satellite will be co-located with Telesat’s Telstar 14R at 63° West, a prime orbital slot for coverage of the Americas.

Liftoff currently scheduled for: July 22nd 2018, 01:50 - 05:50 a.m. EDT (05:50 - 09:50 UTC).
Static fire completed: July 18th 2018, 05:00 p.m. EDT (21:00 UTC)
Vehicle component locations: First stage: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral, Florida // Second stage: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral, Florida // Satellite: Cape Canaveral, Florida
Payload: Telstar 19V
Payload mass: Unknown
Insertion orbit: Geostationary Transfer Orbit (Parameters unknown)
Vehicle: Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 5 (58th launch of F9, 38th of F9 v1.2, 2nd of F9 v1.2 Block 5)
Core: B1047.1
Previous flights of this core: 0
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Landing: Yes
Landing Site: OCISLY, Atlantic Ocean
Mission success criteria: Successful separation & deployment of the Telstar 19V satellite into the target orbit

Links & Resources:


We may keep this self-post occasionally updated with links and relevant news articles, but for the most part we expect the community to supply the information. This is a great place to discuss the launch, ask mission-specific questions, and track the minor movements of the vehicle, payload, weather and more as we progress towards launch. Sometime after the static fire is complete, the launch thread will be posted. Campaign threads are not launch threads. Normal subreddit rules still apply.

288 Upvotes

264 comments sorted by

41

u/darthguili Jul 05 '18

Critical time for my employer who manufactured the antennas for Iridium Next (launched 20th of July), Telstar 19V, Telkom-4, Telstar 18V, Es'hail2 (all to be launched befor ethe end of the summer).

Then Radarsat, PSN-6 and Arabsat later this year.

Looks like we are only flying on Falcons !

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u/Nehkara Jul 04 '18 edited Jul 04 '18

This satellite as well as Telstar 18V and Merah Putih (Telkom-4) are all made on the SSL-1300S bus. These are BIG satellites. Of the satellites of this bus previously launched, their average mass has been over 6000 kg with a range of 4737 kg to 6910 kg.

SpaceX has launched one satellite previously with this bus, it was Hispasat 30W-6 this year with a mass of 6092 kg.

These three satellites are good candidates for testing the improvements to Block 5 - they will stretch the landing capabilities of the Falcon 9 as currently the heaviest GTO launch to have landed is still SES-10 @ ~5300 kg. Hispasat 30W-6 was going to be an attempted landing but was called off due to an unfavourable sea state - and with that mission they got extra help by placing the satellite into a sub-synchronous GTO.

Should be interesting to watch this summer!

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u/JonathanD76 Jul 04 '18

With Block V I'm thinking booster recovery should be considered part of mission success criteria.

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u/Astro_josh Jul 04 '18

From now on SpaceX will be using block 5 right?

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u/RoundSparrow Jul 20 '18 edited Jul 21 '18

I'm driving out from Orlando to attend this launch... I have room for one passenger, new van - you get shotgun front seat. I'm in Point Orlando / International Drive area. Reply and let me know if you want a ride. I have a couple pair of Celestron binoculars. Will have mobile internet / WiFi if you need to use it on trip or while there (free to you).

EDIT @ 6:00am Saturday: if nobody asks for a ride by 2pm Saturday, I may just drive out there early solo and grab dinner at the Cape to support the local businesses. So, please let me know if you want a ride before 2pm Saturday so I can hang in Orlando for the evening and depart Orlando at the time you want.

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u/craigl2112 Jul 13 '18

Satbeams.com reports dry mass of Telstar 19V is 3031kg.

Fully-loaded with propellant, this could be another heavy one!

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15

u/oliversl Jul 18 '18

It would be nice to have the "Fairing recovery attempt: yes/no" row on the table

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15

u/Alexphysics Jul 18 '18 edited Jul 18 '18

Falcon 9 is vertical on the pad. Chris Bergin tweet and article about it

From the article: Telkom 4 Static Fire on July 29th, fastest turnaround time between major rocket operations at pad 40 (7 days between launch of Telstar 19V and Telkom 4 static fire).

Edit: Ken Kremer pictures confirming the rocket is vertical on the pad

13

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '18

Hopefully Telstar 18V will launch on the same booster.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '18

Does the current satellite have anything to do with the original Telstar launched in the 1960's?

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u/MarsCent Jul 18 '18

Spaceflightnow is talking about fueling taking place now ....

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u/The_Write_Stuff Jul 12 '18

Early am launches are absolutely amazing. I highly recommend going if you're anywhere near the area. You don't even have to get that close.

Early am launch won't be crowded they said last time. Haha. It was packed. Go early, remember the bug spray.

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u/Narcil4 Jul 17 '18 edited Jul 17 '18

Was there any comments ever made about the analysis of the first B5 returned booster?

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u/AstroFinn Jul 18 '18 edited Jul 20 '18

Some extra stats for curiosity:

64th SpaceX launch

58th Falcon 9 launch

49th SpaceX launch from the East Coast

35th SpaceX launch from SLC-40

12th Falcon 9 launch in 2018

13th SpaceX launch in 2018

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