![]() The satellite will open three antenna reflectors and activate its communications payload, consisting of 116 Ka-band spot beams. The ion engines will take several months to place the SATRIA satellite into its orbital position at 146 degrees east longitude, where its velocity will match the speed of Earth’s rotation, giving the spacecraft a fixed geographic coverage zone over the Asia-Pacific region. The upper stage deployed the SATRIA spacecraft nearly 37 minutes after liftoff. Ground teams were on standby to receive the first signals from the SATRIA spacecraft, which will unfurl solar panels to recharge its batteries, then use electric thrusters to maneuver into a circular geostationary orbit over the equator. A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off Sunday with Indonesia’s SATRIA communications satellite. ![]() The Falcon 9 reached a top speed of 21,725 mph (34,963 kilometers per hour) with the final impulse from the upper stage engine, according to a telemetry display on SpaceX’s live webcast of the mission. The Falcon 9’s upper stage fired its engine two times to place the SATRIA spacecraft into an elliptical “super synchronous” transfer orbit ranging tens of thousands of miles above Earth. The reusable first stage of the rocket came back to Earth for landing on a drone ship 420 miles (680 kilometers) downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. A few moments later, the Falcon 9 steered on a trajectory due east from Cape Canaveral and thundered into a mostly sunny late afternoon sky. The Falcon 9 ignited its nine kerosene-fueled Merlin engines in the final seconds of the countdown, then hold-down clamps opened to allow the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket to climb away from pad 40. ![]() ![]() The 4.6-metric ton (10,100-pound) spacecraft, known as SATRIA, lifted off atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:21 p.m. A Father’s Day launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral hauled into orbit a European-built communications satellite, the centerpiece of a nearly $550 million project to provide internet service to rural Indonesia. ![]()
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