SpaceX plans to launch a thriller mission from Florida’s Space Coast this night (Dec. 13).
A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to carry off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station as we speak at 8:04 p.m. EDT (0104 GMT on Dec. 14), kicking off a mission that SpaceX calls RRT-1.
The firm will livestream the motion stay by way of its X account, beginning about 10 minutes earlier than launch.
Many house observers assume tonight’s launch is sending a complicated GPS satellite tv for pc to orbit — particularly, GPS 3-10, one other member of the venerable navigation community’s third era of spacecraft. SpaceX holds a contract to launch three of those satellites for the U.S. army and has already despatched one in all them aloft, in January 2023.
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But SpaceX’s mission description would not say something about GPS satellites; it would not even clarify what RRT-1 stands for, if that identify is certainly an acronym. And the fairing that surrounds and protects the RRT-1 payload apparently options no art work or logos, a departure from the norm that provides to the intrigue.
If all goes in response to plan tonight, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come again to Earth about 8.5 minutes after launch, touching down on the drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” within the Atlantic Ocean. It would be the fourth liftoff and touchdown for this specific booster, in response to SpaceX’s mission description.
The rocket’s higher stage, in the meantime, will deploy the RRT-1 payload, no matter it could be, into orbit about 90 minutes after launch.
