SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Friday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the Bangabandhu 1 communications satellite into orbit around 33 minutes later.
The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket is poised for launch from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:14 p.m. EDT (2014 GMT) Friday at the opening of a 127-minute launch window.
It will be the first launch of SpaceX’s upgraded “Block 5” version of the workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, featuring changes to make the vehicle easier to reuse and more reliable.
Perched atop the rocket is the Bangabandhu 1 communications satellite, a spacecraft made by Thales Alenia Space for the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. Bangabandhu 1 is the country’s first communications satellite, and it is named for Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the Bangladeshi nation.
The timeline below outlines the launch sequence for the Falcon 9 flight with Bangabandhu 1.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket loaded with 10 Iridium Next communications satellite is awaiting a predawn launch Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Two astronauts floated outside the International Space Station early Friday for the first of four planned spacewalks to wrap up a complex multi-year job to replace 48 aging batteries in the lab’s solar power system with 24 more powerful lithium-ion units.
SpaceX trucked its Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft — refurbished with a new heat shield and structural enhancements — across the Cape Canaveral spaceport this week for attachment to a Falcon 9 rocket ahead of a planned liftoff next Thursday with four astronauts heading to the International Space Station.