May 22, 2018. Vandenberg AFB, CA, USA.
SpaceX conducted its tenth launch of the year Tuesday, deploying five commercial Iridium communications satellites and the GRACE Follow-On Earth science mission for NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences. The flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base at 12:47:48 local time.
The dual-satellite GRACE Follow-On mission, a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), is a successor to the highly-successful GRACE satellites that ceased operations last year after fifteen years of service. Tuesday’s launch will also carry to orbit five more satellites for Iridium Communications’ second-generation Iridium-NEXT constellation, joining fifty such spacecraft already in operation. It is the sixth launch that SpaceX has conducted for Iridium since the start of 2017.
Tuesday’s launch came about as a result of Russia’s Dnepr rocket becoming unavailable, in part due to the ongoing political situation in Ukraine. Grace Follow-On had been booked to fly aboard Dnepr, while Iridium had contracted for launches of the Russian vehicle to carry pairs of its spacecraft into orbit for testing, and later replenishment of its constellation. Early last year, Iridium and the GFZ – who are responsible for arranging GRACE’s ride to orbit – agreed to share a launch on SpaceX’s more powerful Falcon 9 rocket, splitting the costs while allowing the GRACE mission to continue and Iridium to get further satellites into orbit. (Source: [ Ссылка ])
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