SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Monday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the Koreasat 5A communications satellite into orbit around 36 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 3:34 p.m. EDT (1934 GMT) Monday at the opening of a 144-minute launch window.
Perched atop the rocket is the Koreasat 5A communications satellite, a spacecraft made by Thales Alenia Space for KTsat, a South Korean company which will use the new telecom relay station to broadcast television, provide Internet connectivity and support maritime services over the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, and broad swaths of Asia, including Korea and Japan.
The timeline below outlines the launch sequence for the Falcon 9 flight with Koreasat 5A.
On its first nighttime launch, Rocket Lab’s Electron booster climbed into orbit Sunday from New Zealand with a trio of small U.S. military payloads, demonstrating the privately-developed rocket’s ability to help meet the Air Force’s growing demand for smallsat launches.
A European-built communications satellite has arrived at Cape Canaveral for fueling and final launch preparations ahead of a planned late February liftoff aboard a Falcon 9 rocket with a previously-flown first stage booster.
An Ariane 5 rocket launched Tuesday at 2101 GMT (4:01 p.m. EST) from French Guiana with a communications satellite to provide broadband and television services for the government of Saudi Arabia and commercial clients across Europe and the Middle East, and an Indian payload to help bridge the digital divide in South Asia.