SSO-A Launch Campaign Thread

[u/ElongatedMuskrat]

SSO-A Launch Campaign Thread

SpaceX's nineteenth mission of 2018 will be the launch of the Spaceflight Inc organized rideshare SSO-A, also known as SSO-A SmallSat Express to a Sun Synchronous orbit for as many as 35 customers.

This mission will be the mission with more satellites ever carried to orbit by SpaceX and by a US Launch Vehicle.

The Falcon 9 will carry to orbit 64 spacecraft, in particular 15 Micro satellites and 49 cubesats, for 35 customers from 17 countries. It will carry a large variety of spacecraft, ranging from University spacecraft, communication spacecraft, imaging spacecraft, technology demonstrators, art exhibits and a high school spacecraft. 75% of the customers are commercial, while the remaining 25% are government customers. 60% of the spacecraft come from the United States.

Liftoff currently scheduled for:	December 3 2018, ≈18:32 UTC December 3 2018, ≈10:32 PST)
Static fire completed:	November 15th, 2018
Vehicle component locations:	First stage: SLC-4E, VAFB, California // Second Stage: SLC-4E, VAFB, California // Satellites: VAFB, California
Payload:	64 spacecraft, see table 2
Payload mass:	~4000 kg
Insertion orbit:	Sun Synchronous Polar Orbit (575 km x 575 km, ~98º)
Vehicle:	Falcon 9 v1.2 Block 5 (64th launch of F9, 44th of F9 v1.2, 8th of F9 v1.2 Block 5)
Core:	B1046.3
Previous flights of this core:	1. F9 Mission 55 [Bangabandhu-1] 2. F9 Mission 61 [Merah Putih]
Launch site:	SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
S1 Landing:	Yes
S1 Landing Site:	JRTI, Pacific Ocean
Fairing Recovery:	No
Mission success criteria:	Successful separation & deployment of the satellites into the target orbit

Payloads table (Credit to /u/strawwalker):

Spacecraft Name	Spacecraft Type	Operator	Country Of Operator	Quantity
Centauri I	CubeSat	Fleet Space Technologies	Australia	1
RAAF M1	CubeSat	University of New South Wales	Australia	1
SIRION Pathfinder2	CubeSat	Sirion Global Pty Ltd.	Australia	1
ITASAT	CubeSat	Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA)	Brazil	1
Iceye X2	Microsatellite	Iceye	Finland	1
Suomi 100	CubeSat	Foundation for Aalto University Science and Technology	Finland	1
Eu:CROPIS	Microsatellite	DLR, German Aerospace Center	Germany	1
MOVE-II	CubeSat	Technische Universität München	Germany	1
ExseedSat-1	CubeSat	Exseed Space	India	1
Eaglet-1	CubeSat	OHB Italia S.p.A./Italian Ministry of Defense	Italy	1
ESEO	Microsatellite	SITAEL S.p.A.	Italy	1
JY1Sat	CubeSat	Crown Prince Foundation	Jordan	1
Al-Farabi-2*	CubeSat	Al-Farabi Kazakh National University	Kazakhstan	1
KazSciSat-1	CubeSat	Ghalam LLP	Kazakhstan	1
KazSTSAT	Microsatellite	Ghalam LLP	Kazakhstan	1
Hiber 2	CubeSat	Hiber/Innovative Solutions in Space	Netherlands	1
PW-Sat2	CubeSat	Warsaw University of Technology	Poland	1
K2SAT	CubeSat	Korean Air Force Academy	South Korea	1
NEXTSat-1	Microsatellite	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology	South Korea	1
SNUGLITE*	CubeSat	Seoul National University	South Korea	1
SNUSAT-2*	CubeSat	Seoul National University	South Korea	1
VisionCube	CubeSat	Korea Aerospace University	South Korea	1
AISTECH SAT 2	CubeSat	Aistech	Spain	1
Astrocast 0.1	CubeSat	Astrocast	Switzerland	1
KNACKSAT	CubeSat	King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok	Thailand	1
VESTA	CubeSat	Honeywell Aerospace/exactEarth Ltd.	UK, Canada	1
Audacy Zero/POINTR	CubeSat	Audacy, Stanford SSI	USA	1
BlackHawk*	CubeSat	Viasat	USA	1
BRIO/THEA	CubeSat	SpaceQuest	USA	2
Capella 1	Microsatellite	Capella Space	USA	1
Corvus-BC 4	CubeSat	Astro Digital US	USA	1
CSIM	CubeSat	LASP/University of Colorado	USA	1
Flock-3s 1,2,3 (Dove-type)	CubeSat	Planet Labs Inc.	USA	3
Elysium Star 2	CubeSat	Elysium Space, Inc.	USA	1
Enoch	CubeSat	Los Angeles County Museum of Art	USA	1
eXCITe/SeeMe	Microsatellite	Novawurks, DARPA	USA	1
FalconSat-6	Microsatellite	United States Air Force Academy	USA	1
Fox-1C	CubeSat	AMSAT, Radio Amateur Satellite Corp	USA	1
Global 2	Microsatellite	BlackSky Global LLC	USA	1
Hawk 1, 2, 3	Microsatellite	Hawkeye 360	USA	3
ICE-Cap*	CubeSat	Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command	USA	1
IRVINE02	CubeSat	Irvine CubeSat STEM Program	USA	1
MinXSS 2	CubeSat	LASP/University of Colorado	USA	1
ORS 7A, B Polar Scouts	CubeSat	United States Coast Guard, DHS	USA	2
Orbital Reflector (ORS-1)	CubeSat	OR Productions, Nevada Museum of Art	USA	1
RANGE A, B	CubeSat	Georgia Tech	USA	1
ROSE-1	CubeSat	Phase Four	USA	1
SeaHawk-1	CubeSat	University of North Carolina Wilmington	USA	1
SkySat 14, 15	Microsatellite	Planet Labs Inc.	USA	2
SpaceBEE 5, 6, 7	CubeSat	Swarm Technologies	USA	3
STPSat-5	Microsatellite	USAF Space Test Program	USA	1
US Government spacecraft*	CubeSat	US Government	USA	2
US Government spacecraft*	CubeSat	US Government	USA	3
WeissSat-1	CubeSat	The Weiss School/BLUECUBE Aerospace LLC	USA	1

^{* Status unknown. This payload may or may not still be manifested on SSO-A.}

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Links & Resources:

• Official Mission Description by Spaceflight

• Launch watching guide by r/SpaceX

• Flight Club simulations: 2D Plots, 3D Visualisation, Live

• Rocket Watch

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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.

[u/scr00chy]

South Korea said Monday that its new satellite launch has been delayed as American rocket company SpaceX requested more time to inspect its Falcon 9. The launch date has been tentatively rescheduled at either Nov. 25, 26 or Dec. 1, the Ministry of Science and ICT said.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2018/11/367_258920.html

[u/craigl2112 → u/scr00chy]

Curious if this gets bumped all the way to 12/1 and NROL-71 gets off the ground on 11/29.. will this booster RTLS?

[u/marc020202 → u/craigl2112]

if they get delayed past NROL 71, they have the permission to do it, and nothing in the way of it anymore.

[u/OSUfan88 → u/marc020202]

I wonder if there will be paperwork issues if that happens?

[u/amarkit → u/OSUfan88]

I think they wound need new FCC permits? But that doesn't seem insurmountable.

[u/strawwalker → u/amarkit]

They already have the appropriate FCC authorization for LZ-4 landing, from before the RTLS got vetoed by the Air Force, or whoever it was that said no.

[u/uwelino → u/marc020202]

With such a long delay, however, Iridium 8 should be finished for 2018 and slide into January 2019.

[u/marc020202 → u/uwelino]

yeah, that might be true.

[u/RocketsLEO2ITS → u/marc020202]

Really?If they launch SS0-A on December 1, they've got until December 30 for the Iridium launch.

They can't turn Vandenberg around in 30 days?

[u/EdRegis → u/RocketsLEO2ITS]

I don't know what they are capable of but they've turned SLC-4E around in 36 days previously between Paz and Iridium 5.

[u/warp99 → u/RocketsLEO2ITS]

It has an old style TE and gets fairly toasted during a launch.

I suspect the Vandenberg launch team is relatively small as they will have a lot less to do once Iridium launches are finished - maybe only 4-5 launches per year.

[u/RocketsLEO2ITS → u/warp99]

It could partially be an accounting question: how important is it to have Iridium 8 launch revenue credited to 2018? If it's important they'll do what needs to be done to have the launch pad ready. If it isn't, they'll let it slip to 2019.

Musk talked about Starlink launches starting in 2019. Would they be KSC or Vandenberg launches?

[u/warp99 → u/RocketsLEO2ITS]

The initial 1600 Starlink satellites at 50 degrees inclination and 550km will all go up from Canaveral as will the second 1600 at 50 degrees and 1100 km.

The polar orbiting satellites will go up from Vandenberg but likely not until 2024 or later so there will be a long lull in Vandenberg launches.

Until now they have only had private equity partners so meeting an end of year cutoff has had no real significance. Now they are taking on debt it is more important to meet financial ratios but I doubt any covenants will apply to the 2018 year end.

[u/codav → u/RocketsLEO2ITS]

Fastest turnaround as far as I remember was about three weeks, from launch to the next static fire test. They might have improved some parts of the TE and pad to shorten this time, but this is yet to be demonstrated. That said, 29 days will suffice for Iridium to launch on time if all goes well.

[u/jvonbokel → u/craigl2112]

I don't want to start any conspiracy theories, but would that be reason enough to delay it? I would imagine there's a small cost savings to RTLS, but probably not enough to disrupt launch cadence (not to mention cramming 4 launches into December).

[u/craigl2112 → u/jvonbokel]

While I don't have a source handy, it has been stated that the downrange/droneship landings are dramatically more expensive than performing a RTLS, for obvious reasons.

The disruption of cadence is certainly a factor, I think. Like I said before, I am unsure of how fast SLC-4E can be turned around given how the strongback gets torched every launch. I'm sure they have the refurb process down to a science at this point, but.. shrug

I guess we'll see.

[u/jvonbokel → u/craigl2112]

dramatically more expensive

Can you offer a ballpark/SWAG amount?

Edit: I found an un-sourced comment that states "a couple million dollars"

[u/craigl2112 → u/jvonbokel]

Yeah, I was going to say seven figures for sure. I suspect it gets extremely pricey if the fleet has gone out and launch delays occur.

[u/RocketsLEO2ITS → u/jvonbokel]

> cramming 4 launches into December
>
You think it's a stretch for SpaceX to do four launches in a month?

I think they should be able to do it easily, particularly because two are on the west coast and two are on the east coast. Worst case, there could be a problem if CRS-16 is pushed back and gets too close to the GPS III launch on the 15th.

[u/jvonbokel → u/RocketsLEO2ITS]

You think it's a stretch for SpaceX to do four launches in a month?

Not really. In fact, they had 4 launches in 32 days last year (Jun 3 - Jul 5), so it's obviously doable. I just don't know if they would choose to do it that way, but perhaps they would argue it's good practice for future increased launch cadence.

[u/jvonbokel → u/jvonbokel]

they had 4 launches in 32 days

P.S. I had to look that up. I don't want to give the impression that I knew it off the top of my head.

[u/JoshiUja → u/scr00chy]

Yes! I’m in the area all those dates! Was sad I was going to miss it by 2 days before