Atlas V rocket set for Thursday night launch
Mission managers will gather Tuesday to review their readiness for Cape Canaveral's first rocket launch of 2017, a planned 7:46 p.m. Thursday blastoff by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and a U.S. missile warning satellite.
Teams last Thursday hoisted the roughly 10,000-pound spacecraft worth $1.2 billion atop the Atlas V at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 41.
The Lockheed Martin-built Space Based Infrared System satellite is equipped with infrared sensors to provide early detection and tracking of ballistic missiles.
Known as SBIRS GEO-3, the spacecraft will be the third placed in a geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator, where it will appear to fly in a fixed position above the planet. A fourth SBIRS satellite is expected to launch late this year to complete the operational constellation.
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The Atlas V rocket is expected to roll a quarter-mile from its processing tower to the launch pad on Wednesday. A 40-minute launch window opens at 7:46 p.m.
The mission is ULA's first of at least 11 planned this year, including seven from Florida.
ULA last Thursday also made progress preparing for its second launch of the year, lifting a Delta IV rocket booster vertical at Launch Complex 37. The rocket is scheduled to launch the Air Force's ninth Wideband Global Satcom communications satellite on March 8. The WGS-9 satellite arrived at the Cape last week.
Flight hardware also arrived for ULA's third planned launch, as Orbital ATK delivered a Cygnus spacecraft's cargo module to Kennedy Space Center. An Atlas V is targeting a March 16 launch of supplies to the International Space Station.
Space Coast could host more than 30 launches in 2017
Moon Express funded for private moon shot
Cape Canaveral-based Moon Express has secured $20 million in new investment that ensures the company can attempt to launch a small robotic lander to the moon as soon as the end of this year, the company announced Friday.
“We now have all the resources in place to shoot for the moon,” Moon Express co-founder and CEO Bob Richards said in a statement.
The private moon shot will blast off from New Zealand on Rocket Lab’s new Electron rocket, which has not yet flown.
Meanwhile, Moon Express has begun renovating the former Delta II launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to serve as its base for testing the washing machine-sized MX-1E spacecraft.
A successful lunar landing this year could position the company to claim the $20 million grand prize in the Google Lunar XPRIZE.
Schedule of upcoming Florida rocket launches
The prize will go to the first privately developed lander to touch down, maneuver to another location and beam back high-definition images.
Moon Express has longer-term ambitions to establish a low-cost lunar transportation service that could enable science missions, mining of water ice and perhaps some day sending people to the surface.
“Our goal is to expand Earth’s social and economic sphere to the moon, our largely unexplored eighth continent, and enable a new era of low cost lunar exploration and development for students, scientists, space agencies and commercial interests,” said Richards.
Last year, Moon Express became the first company to win U.S. government approval to fly a commercial deep space mission.
In total, the company says it has raised more than $45 million in private investment from individuals and venture capital sources including Founders Fund, Collaborative Fund and Autodesk.
Moon Express approved for first commercial lunar mission
Launch the Dream
Join members of the Florida Space Development Council on Monday for a Martin Luther King Jr. Day screening of the movie "Hidden Figures" at the Premier Oaks 10 Theater in Melbourne.
Proceeds from ticket sales will support a rocket competition for disadvantaged girls in grades 7-12 who are interested in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers. The #LaunchTheDream initiative will send winners to a national competition in Alabama.
“On the anniversary of our nation’s most famous dreamer, let us take a moment to sit together in unity, enjoy the power of the American story, then pay-it forward, by giving those children, still fighting for an equal chance, the confidence and inspiration to dream, that they too can touch the stars,” said Gabriel Rothblatt, president of the FSDC, in a press release.
The FSDC is the local chapter of the nonprofit National Space Society. Visit launchthedream.eventbrite.com to buy movie tickets or make a donation.
Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.