Falcon 9 carries Bangladesh’s space ambitions
Today brings historic firsts for both SpaceX and Bangladesh: the
former is sending up the final, highly updated revision of its Falcon 9
rocket for the first time, and the latter is launching its first
satellite. It’s a preview of the democratized space economy to come this
century.
Update: Success! The Falcon 9 first
stage, after delivering the second stage to the border of space, has
successfully landed on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You, and
Bangabandhu has been delivered to its target orbit.
You can watch the launch below:
Although Bangabandhu-1 is definitely important, especially to the
nation launching it, it is not necessarily in itself a highly notable
satellite. It’s to be a geostationary communications hub that serves the
whole country and region with standard C-band and Ku-band connectivity
for all kinds of purposes.
Currently the country spends some $14
million per year renting satellite time from other countries, something
they determined to stop doing as a matter of national pride and
independence.“A sovereign country, in a pursuit of sustainable development, needs
its own satellite in order to reduce its dependency on other nations,” reads
the project description at the country’s Telecommunications Regulation
Commission, which has been pursuing the idea for nearly a decade.
It
contracted with Thales Alenia Space to produce and test the satellite,
which cost about $250 million and is expected to last at least 15 years.
In addition to letting the country avoid paying satellite rent, it
could generate revenue by selling its services to private companies and
nearby 
nations.
nations.
“This satellite, which carries the symbolic name of the father of the
nation, Bangabandhu, is a major step forward for telecommunications in
Bangladesh, and a fantastic driver of economic development and
heightened recognition across Asia,” said the company’s CEO, Jean-Loïc
Galle, in a recent blog post about the project.
Bangabandhu-1
will be launching atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, but this one is
different from all the others that have flown in the past. Designed with
crewed missions in mind, it could be thought of as the production
version of the rocket, endowed with all the refinements of years of
real-world tests.
Most often referred to as Block 5, this is
(supposedly) the final revision of the Falcon 9 hardware, safer and more
reusable than previous versions. The goal is for a Block 5 first stage
to launch a hundred times before being retired, far more than the handful of times existing Falcon 9s have been reused.
There
are lots of improvements over the previous rockets, though many are
small or highly technical in nature. The most important, however, are
easy to enumerate.
The engines themselves have been improved and strengthened
to allow not only greater thrust (reportedly about a 7-8 percent
improvement) but improved control and efficiency, especially during
landing. They also have a new dedicated heat shield for
descent. They’re rated to fly 10 times without being substantially
refurbished, but are also bolted on rather than welded, further reducing
turnaround time.
The legs on which the rocket lands are also fully retractable,
meaning they don’t have to be removed before transport. If you want to
launch the same rocket within days, every minute counts.
Instead of white paint, the first stage will have a thermal coating (also white) that helps keep it relatively cool during descent.
To
further reduce heat damage, the rocket’s “grid fins,” the
waffle-iron-like flaps that pop out to control its descent, are now made of a single piece of titanium.
They won’t catch fire or melt during reentry like the previous aluminum
ones sometimes did, and as such are now permanently attached features
of the rocket.
(SpaceX founder Elon Musk is particularly proud of
these fins, which flew on the Falcon Heavy side boosters; in the
briefing afterwards, he said: “I’m actually glad we got the side
boosters back, because they had the titanium fins. If I had to pick
something to get back, it’d be those.”)
Lastly (for our purposes anyway) the fuel tank has been reinforced
out of concerns some had about the loading of supercooled fuel while
the payload — soon to be humans, if all goes well — is attached to the
rocket. This system failed before, causing a catastrophic explosion in
2016, but the fault has been addressed and the reinforcement should help
further mitigate risk. (The emergency abort rockets should also keep
astronauts safe should something go wrong during launch.)
The
changes, though they contribute directly to reuse and cost reductions,
are also aimed at satisfying the requirements of NASA’s commercial crew
missions. SpaceX is in competition to provide both launch and crew
capsule services for missions to the ISS, scheduled for as early as late
2018. The company needs to launch the Block 5 version of Falcon 9 (not
necessarily the same exact rocket) at least 7 times before any
astronauts can climb aboard.
The Bangabandhu-1 (BD-1) is the first Bangladeshi geostationary communications satellite. It was launched on May 11, 2018.[1] The project is being implemented by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and was the first payload launched by a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket.[3]
Contents
Overview
The
Bangabandhu-1 satellite is expected to be located at the 119.1° East
longitude geostationary slot. It is named after the father of the
nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It is designed and manufactured by Thales Alenia Space and its launch provider is SpaceX.
The total cost of the satellite was projected to be 248 million US
dollars in 2015 (Tk 19.51 billion), Bangabandhu Satellite-1 carries a
total of 40 Ku-band and C-band transponders with a capacity of 1600 megahertz and a predicted life span to exceed 15 years.[4][5][6][7]
The satellite will expand Ku-band coverage over all of Bangladesh and
its nearby waters including the Bay of Bengal, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri
Lanka, the Philippines, and Indonesia. This is coupled with C-band
coverage for all aforementioned areas.
Launch
Bangabandhu Satellite-1 was launched at 20:14 UTC on May 11, 2018,[1] on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle.[2] It is the first payload to be launched using the new Block 5 model of the rocket.[8][9]
The satellite was originally slated to launch May 10, 2018. However,
the rocket carrying the payload triggered an automatic abort as it
entered internal power and control at T-58 seconds. Soon after, the
rocket launch was pushed back 24 hours, and it was finally launched on
May 11, 2018.[10]
Bangabandhu-1 had been previously scheduled to fly on an Arianespace Ariane 5 ECA but Ariane was unable to meet the contractual launch date, which enabled the launch to be switched to its backup launcher, SpaceX.[11]
After launching the satellite, Bangladesh began to receive test
signal from it on 12 may. A ground station has built in Bangladesh to
control the satellite at Gazipur. A backup ground station also built in Rangamati.[12]
See also
- Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Limited
- List of radio stations in Bangladesh
- Media of Bangladesh
- Telecommunications in Bangladesh
References
- "Bangladesh receives test signal from Bangabandhu-1 satellite". bdnews24.com. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
External links
On Friday, May 11th at 4:14 p.m. EDT, SpaceX successfully launched Bangabandhu Satellite-1 from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed on “Of Course I Still Love You,” SpaceX’s droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.Falcon 9 delivered Bangabandhu Satellite-1 to a geostationary transfer orbit and the spacecraft was deployed approximately 33 minutes after liftoff. The Bangabandhu Satellite-1 mission served as the first flight of Falcon 9 Block 5, the final substantial upgrade to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Falcon 9 Block 5 is designed to be capable of 10 or more flights with very limited refurbishment as SpaceX continues to strive for rapid reusability and extremely high reliability. You can watch a replay of the launch below and find more information about the mission in our press kit.
Watch SpaceX launch a satellite for Bangladesh with its most powerful Falcon 9 rocket yet
This afternoon, SpaceX is slated to launch the first
high-orbit communications satellite ever for the country of Bangladesh,
and the company is using its most advanced Falcon 9 yet for the job.
Called Bangabandhu-1, the satellite is riding into space on top of
SpaceX’s Block 5 Falcon 9 rocket. It’s the last and most powerful version of the Falcon 9 that SpaceX plans to make, as the company switches its focus to developing a new giant rocket and spaceship combo, the BFR.
The Block 5 sports numerous upgrades designed to make the
rocket easier to reuse. Thanks to the changes, the Block 5 shouldn’t
require as much time or effort to be made flight-ready again once it
lands. And this particular rocket will be showing off its landing skills
after the flight. The first stage of the Falcon 9 will return to Earth following launch and attempt a touchdown on one of SpaceX’s autonomous drone ships in the Atlantic Ocean.
But the primary goal of the mission is to get
Bangabandhu-1 into orbit. The satellite will eventually travel to a path
22,000 miles above Earth, where it will provide telecommunications
coverage for Bangladesh and surrounding areas. It’s the first time the
country will send a communications satellite to this high of an orbit.
The rocket is slated to take off from SpaceX’s launchpad
at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. SpaceX originally
tried to take off on Thursday, but the flight was aborted just a minute
before launch due to an issue with ground systems. Now, the company will
try to take off Friday, May 10th, during a launch window that runs
roughly two hours, from 4:14PM to 6:21PM ET. Weather may be a little
iffy, though; there’s a 60 percent chance of good conditions.
SpaceX’s coverage of the launch will begin around 20
minutes before takeoff, so check back then to see the most powerful
Falcon 9 ever go to space.
Update Thursday May 10th, 6:20PM ET:
The final countdown of the Falcon 9’s launch was halted just a minute
before take off on Thursday, due to problem with ground support systems
that triggered the vehicle’s abort sequence. SpaceX wasn’t able to fix
the problem during the launch window and has delayed the mission to
Friday, May 10th. The company can take off during a launch window that
spans between 4:14PM ET and 6:21PM ET.
Science
- North Korea says that it will dismantle its nuclear test site this month
- Are cotton totes better for the Earth than plastic bags? It depends on what you care about
- NASA is sending a helicopter to Mars to get a bird’s-eye view of the planet
- Today wasn’t Day Zero in Cape Town, but the water crisis isn’t over
- With the landing of SpaceX’s powerful new Falcon 9, a new era of rocket reusability takes off
- ULA picks an engine for its next generation rocket — just not the main one
No comments:
Post a Comment