Post-launch update: Despite some last minute concerns about strong winds and a wayward boat, SpaceX launched on Saturday morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base. The Falcon 9 rocket made a picturesque ascent, delivering its payload of 10 large satellites into low-Earth orbit (they should reach their final 625km orbit about 90 minutes after launch). The first stage then descended back to Earth and, for the first time, an on board camera provided views all the way down.

The rocket then stuck its landing on Just Read the Instructions, marking the first time the company has landed a booster in the Pacific Ocean.

First stage has landed on Just Read the Instructions pic.twitter.com/W0EoLaO4YR — SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 14, 2017

Original story: Today SpaceX will attempt to launch its Falcon 9 rocket for the first time since a fueling accident on Sept. 1, 2016, which destroyed the booster and its satellite payload on the launch pad. The instantaneous launch window for Saturday's attempt opens at 12:54pm ET (17:54pm UK), with liftoff occurring from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

After a rather quick investigation into the September accident, in which SpaceX concluded that one of three composite overwrapped pressure vessels inside the rocket's second stage liquid oxygen tank failed, the company has modified the fueling process. By taking a slower approach with its load and go fueling method, SpaceX expects to put less stress on the pressure vessels.

During SpaceX's last successful mission, the launch of JCSAT-16 in August, fueling of kerosene and liquid oxygen both began 35 minutes before launch. Now the company says kerosene loading will begin 70 minutes before launch, with liquid oxygen fueling beginning at 45 minutes prior.

Saturday's launch will boost 10 Iridium NEXT satellites to a 625-km orbit. These are the first 10 of 70 next generation satellites that SpaceX will launch for Iridium and its mobile voice and data satellite communications network. After boosting the satellites into space, the first stage of Falcon 9 will attempt a landing on the Just Read the Instructions droneship in the Pacific Ocean. The webcast should begin about 20 minutes before Saturday's launch window opens.

The launch attempt comes at a critical time for SpaceX, which has had two accidents with its Falcon 9 rocket in less than two years. A report released Friday suggested the company has gone from being moderately profitable to sustaining significant losses in the wake of those accidents. So now the company must begin flying its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket safely, and often. That effort starts Saturday.</s>SpaceX has succeeded in launch a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, its first launch since a Falcon 9 rocket exploded on a launch pad in pre-flight procedures in September 2016. The launch took place at 9:54 AM PT Saturday, during an instant launch window. It’s a huge victory for SpaceX, which has had to delay its launch schedule since the explosion.

The launch also resulted in a successful recovery of the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage, which marks the seventh time SpaceX has succeed in landing this stage back for potential later re-use. SpaceX’s second-stage also successfully reached low-earth orbit, where it will begin the next stage of the mission, deploying Iridium’s 10 satellites.

This mission is the first in a series for client Iridium, that will see it deploy 70 satellites in a network for voice and data communication. It’s also a green light for SpaceX in terms of the company pursuing its aggressive launch schedule, which is something the private launch provider needs to do in order to continue locking in new contracts and working towards its goal of decreasing the cost of launches even further still.

In 2016, SpaceX completed only 8 of a planned 20 launches, due to the September 1 explosion that halted all new launches for four months. That has not been good for the company’s bottom line, resulting in a year that likely saw it exacerbate a reported $250 million loss in 2015.

SpaceX also had to push back its timelines for test launches of its Dragon crew capsule as a result of the September incident. The original target date for a Dragon test launch with people on board was 2017, but it’s now been pushed back to 2018. The company still hopes to fly a mission without crew on board by the last quarter of this year, however.

Crewed mission capabilities will help SpaceX expand its ability to serve contracts, since it can then serve the ISS for more than just supply runs. It also sets the stage for SpaceX’s future goals of providing missions to Mars, with a target initial date for those aspirations still set for 2024.

SpaceX successfully began deploying the Iridium NEXT satellites as of around 11 AM PT/2 PM ET. The company also reported that it’s not receiving telemetry from the second stage due to an issue with the ground station communications, but will know shortly if the remaining satellites deployed as intended.</s>This photo obtained from SpaceX on Dec. 20, 2015 shows the Falcon 9 rocket in Cape Canaveral, Florida (AFP)

A SpaceX Falcon rocket blasted off from California on Saturday, returning the company to flight for the first time since a fiery launchpad explosion in September. The 230-foot (70-meter) rocket launched from VandenbergAir Force Base at 9:54 a.m. PST (1754 GMT) to deliver 10 satellites into orbit for Iridium Communications Inc.

“It’s a clean sweep – 10 for 10,” SpaceX launch commentator John Insprucker said after the satellites were released. SpaceX founder and entrepreneur Elon Musk’s ambitious flight plans had been grounded since the Sept. 1 explosion during fueling ahead of a pre-flight test in Florida.

About 10 minutes after Saturday’s launch, the first stage of the rocket, which had separated from the rest of craft, successfully touched down on a platform in the Pacific Ocean, a feat previously accomplished by four other returning Falcon rockets. SpaceX intends to reuse its rockets to cut costs.

“Rocket is stable,” Musk posted on Twitter. “Mission looks good.”

Two other returning Falcon boosters landed on the ground.

The mission tested changes implemented by SpaceExploration Technologies Corp, known as SpaceX, since the launchpad explosion.

Accident investigators determined that a canister of helium burst inside the rocket’s second-stage liquid oxygen tank, triggering the explosion. The canister is being redesigned, but until then SpaceX is addressing the issue by modifying its fueling procedures.

The explosion destroyed a $62 million SpaceX booster and a$200 million Israeli communications satellite that it was to put into orbit two days later.

The accident clouded the company’s aggressive agenda, which includes beginning to ferry U.S. astronauts into space next year, when it also plans to make its first voyage to Mars.

Saturday’s flight begins to clear a logjam of more than 70 planned missions, worth more than $10 billion, involving SpaceX Falcon rockets, which last flew in August, SpaceX said.

The launch is the first in a seven-flight contract with Iridium worth $468.1 million, company spokeswoman Diane Hockenberry said.

SpaceX aims to launch 27 rockets in 2017, more than triple the eight flights the privately held firm managed in 2016,according to a report on Friday in the Wall Street Journal.

In addition to its dozens of commercial customers, SpaceX is one of two companies hired by NASA to fly cargo to the International Space Station.

The company’s 2017 agenda includes the debut launch of a heavy-lift booster, flying its first reused rocket and repairing the Florida launchpad damaged in the explosion.</s>SpaceX says its first launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since a fiery September accident has successfully placed a constellation of satellites in orbit. The two-stage rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, at 9:54 a.m. Saturday to place 10 satellites into orbit for Iridium Communications Inc. SpaceX officials say they took corrective action on all possible causes of the Sept.

Start the conversation, or Read more at CBS 3 Springfield.</s>SpaceX returned to the cosmos Saturday, launching its first mission since one of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets exploded on Sept. 1.

After the explosion, SpaceX halted its launch schedule until the company could determine its root cause. A final assessment released on Jan. 2 stated that the protective lining likely failed in a pressurized vessel for one of the rocket’s liquid oxygen fuel tanks. Helium containers within the tank, used to maintain pressure balance, buckled. The friction between the liquid oxygen and the broken container caused a spark, which blew up the Falcon 9 booster.

“There were just 93 milliseconds from the first sign of anomalous data to the loss of the second stage, followed by loss of the vehicle,” according to the mission assessment. Investigators used 3,000 sources of data to ascertain the nature of the accident, and they determined the Falcon 9 is once again go for launch.

Saturday’s launch marks SpaceX’s third attempt to deliver 10 Iridium NEXT communications satellites. Both prior attempts were scrubbed due to poor weather. Iridium runs the largest constellation of communications satellites, consisting of 66 individual spacecraft over six different orbits. Iridium’s new series of satellites, currently undergoing testing, are planned to increase data capability for satellite phones, allowing them to have faster internet access. A secondary payload on the NEXT satellites will be used to improve Air Traffic Control communications.

SpaceX is planning six more launches for this year, which will replace all satellites in the current Iridium constellation network by early 2018.

Vandenberg Air Force Base is one of three launch facilities that SpaceX uses and the only one on the West Coast. Its location is prime for the polar orbits used by communications and spy satellites.</s>SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit from California’s Central Coast on Saturday, resuming service after an explosive setback last year and delivering much-needed reinforcements to Iridium’s satellite constellation providing communications by land, sea and sky.

The comeback mission kicks off a busy launch manifest with more than 20 SpaceX rocket flights expected this year as the company prepares to start launching astronauts, vital national security payloads and a slate of valuable telecommunications satellites for global broadcasters and network clients.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher fired away from Vandenberg Air Force Base, a military complex northwest Los Angeles, at 9:54:39 a.m. PST (12:54:39 p.m. EST; 1754:39 GMT) and soared into a brilliant blue sky, trailing a stream of orange-hot exhaust from nine kerosene-fueled Merlin 1D engines as the booster turned south over the Pacific Ocean.

Two-and-a-half minutes later, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket detached and flew back to the ground, steering through the rarefied upper atmosphere with aerodynamic grid fins and periodic bursts of rocket thrust, nailing a vertical propulsive landing on a barge — or “drone ship” — loitering in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California.

The recovery attempts were billed as experiments when SpaceX first tried them, but Saturday’s touchdown marked the seventh time one of the 15-story first stage boosters has landed intact. SpaceX intends to refurbish and refly the salvaged rockets, beginning as soon as late February with the launch of a communications craft for SES.

Meanwhile, the mission’s primary purpose was the deployment of 10 new-generation voice and data relay spacecraft for Iridium, a provider of global satellite phone, aircraft and ship tracking, and messaging services.

The second stage’s single Merlin engine shut off around nine minutes after blastoff, and the rocket coasted halfway around the planet, passing over Antarctica before reigniting the engine at around T+plus 52 minutes.

The brief three-second maneuver put the rocket into an on-target orbit, SpaceX said. The mission was aiming for a near-circular 388-mile-high (625-kilometer) perch in polar orbit.

Then came a sequence of 10 critical satellite deployments to release each of the 1,896-pound (860-kilogram) “Iridium Next” spacecraft.

A ground station problem prevented launch control from monitoring the separation maneuvers in real-time, a SpaceX official said, but a few minutes later the rocket flew in range of a tracking site in Svalbard, Norway, transmitting telemetry confirming all 10 satellites were away.

“It’s a clean sweep, 10 for 10,” said John Insprucker, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 product manager. “All the bridge wires show open, and that is a conclusion of the primary mission today, a great one (for the) first stage, second stage, and the customer’s satellites deployed into a good orbit.”

Engineers from Iridium and Thales Alenia Space, the satellites’ prime contractor, verified all 10 relay stations were alive and functioning after their ride to orbit.

That was the moment Iridium chief executive Matt Desch said he would breathe a sigh of relief.

“The real nerves for me is that this is the first time we have deployed our satellites and had them talk to us,” Desch told Spaceflight Now in an interview before the launch. “I know that fear will go down dramatically once we get some satellites in orbit.”

Saturday’s flight was the first of at least seven Falcon 9 flights planned to populate the Iridium fleet with modernized satellites.

The successful launch clears the way for the resumption of SpaceX missions after a rocket exploded on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral on Sept. 1, grounding the Falcon 9 four-and-a-half months.

SpaceX traced the probable cause of the accident to high-pressure helium tanks on the Falcon 9’s upper stage, which are immersed inside super-cold liquid oxygen and wrapped in carbon shell.

Engineers found that voids could form between the aluminum lining of the tanks, which hold cryogenic helium to pressurize the rocket’s propellant system for flight, and the carbon overwrap.

Liquid oxygen trapped in the buckles can ignite, investigators said, and most likely led to the sudden explosion Sept. 1 that destroyed a Falcon 9 rocket and a nearly $200 million satellite during a pre-flight test.

SpaceX said they would alter their countdown procedures on future launches, and no longer conduct such “static fire” tests with satellites on-board.

The launch company is shifting its Florida flights to launch pad 39A, a shuttle-era facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, after the Sept. 1 mishap damaged the Falcon 9’s previous pad.

Construction crews are still finishing modifications to pad 39A for Falcon 9 flights and eventual crewed launches, which are planned in partnership with NASA starting in 2018 to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.

The next Falcon 9 mission could take off as soon as Jan. 26 from pad 39A with the EchoStar 23 communications satellite. SpaceX’s next cargo delivery flight to the space station will follow around Feb. 8.

The 10 “Iridium Next” satellites orbited Saturday were designed by Thales Alenia Space in France, and then assembled and tested in an assembly line fashion in partnership with Orbital ATK in Arizona.

Sixty-six are needed to fully replace Iridium’s current constellation, and Iridium ordered 15 more as spares.

“Leading a worldwide team to manufacture, assemble, test and prepare each satellite for this moment has been incredibly exciting,” said Bertrand Maureau, executive vice president of telecommunications at Thales Alenia Space. “We are very proud to have conducted such a unique program, in terms of scale and complexity as well as to have successfully completed the end-to-end whole constellation on-ground validation. The system is fully tested, and the compatibility of Iridium Next with the Block-1 operating satellites has been perfectly demonstrated.”

“We are proud to be a part of this revolutionary satellite program,” said Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK’s space systems group. “Seeing these first ten satellites launch successfully into space is the result of a unique assembly line process at our satellite manufacturing facility that represents a remarkable achievement. We look forward to seeing the innovative solutions these satellites, which are great examples of leading-edge technology and manufacturability, will enable.”

The upgraded network will offer faster broadband connections, improved functionality and 3G-equivalent cellular phone services for Iridium’s pool of nearly 850,000 subscribers, a client list that includes the U.S. military, oil and gas companies, aviation and maritime operators, and mining and construction contractors.

The upgraded satellites also carry piggyback payloads for Aireon, an affiliate of Iridium, to help air traffic controllers track airplane movements worldwide. Iridium Next satellites slated to fly on later launches will host an antenna to monitor maritime traffic for exactEarth, a Canadian company, and Harris Corp. of Melbourne, Florida.

Iridium and its contractors will spend around three months wringing out the first set of 10 Iridium Next spacecraft ahead of the launch of the next batch in April, according to Desch.

As more new satellites join the Iridium fleet, engineers will maneuver each one from its 388-mile-high drop-off orbit into the operational constellation at an altitude of 485 miles (780 kilometers) alongside the craft it is intended to replace.

“One-by-one, we’ll do this process called a slot swap, where we move the satellite 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the other satellite — right behind it — and then instantaneously swap over the inter-satellite links between the old satellite and its peers and the new satellite and its peers,” Desch said. “Then we will command the old satellite to deboost and deorbit itself.”

Desch said Iridium’s team used the launch delays for extra testing on the satellites, the ground control system and software to ensure the “slot swaps” go as planned. The ground team has also rehearsed the activity in simulations.

“That whole process is going to go one-by-one 66 times over the next 15 months or so,” Desch said. “It’s an incredibly complicated, highly-choreographed, highly-rehearsed and practiced set of maneuvers that is going to keep us incredibly busy.”

Desch said the successful launch Saturday “only starts our efforts, which, frankly, I think is one of the more complicated things going on in the aerospace industry, and (that’s) probably not well-understood. It’s never been done before on a scale like this, where one network is completely replaced in space. We’ve been using the term ‘tech refresh’ … It’s one of the largest tech refreshes in history.”

The Iridium network relies on satellites spread out in six orbital lanes, each home to 11 active spacecraft, to provide uninterrupted global coverage.

The company’s existing satellites were launched from 1997 through 2002 for missions originally scheduled to least eight years. Nevertheless, Desch said most of the satellites have outlived their design lives, and 64 of the 66 relay stations required for worldwide service remain operational.

Two satellites dropped offline last year, reducing Iridium’s service availability to around 98 percent.

“We need reinforcements to replace the network,” Desch said Friday. “We haven’t lost any other satellites, knock on wood, in at least six months or longer now. The current network is holding up fine. I would expect it will still be able to maintain that high performacne for another two or three years, at least, because the satellites are not showing signs of imminent decline.”

The last satellite to fall out of the Iridium network was running low on fuel, and other members of the fleet have succumbed to electronic failures. One satellite was destroyed in a violent in-space collision with a defunct Russian military satellite in 2009 in an incident infamous in space industry circles.

Battery health remains good across the Iridium fleet, Desch said.

“We still haven’t lost any satellites from battery failures,” he said. “But they’re getting old. Twenty years is a long time for a satellite, and maybe they can make it to 22, 23 or 24 years, but that’s really pushing it on the network.”

The first two Iridium Next launches were slated to target the holes in the network, Desch said.

Saturday’s flight was timed — to the second — to launch into Plane 6 of the constellation, where only 10 satellites remain operational.

The Iridium Next program is a $3 billion investment by Iridium. The purchase of 81 satellites represents approximately $2.2 billion of that cost, Desch said, and the company’s launch contract with SpaceX for seven Falcon 9 flights was valued at $492 million when the parties signed it in 2010.

Desch said Iridium will scale back its capital expenditures once the new-generation fleet is up and running.

“That underpins all of this,” Desch said. “It’s not just a technical marvel that we’re doing, but it’s also a financial transformation that we’re not very far away from, finally, but we’ve got to get these satellites up first.”

If you appreciate articles like this one, help us continue and expand our coverage of the space program by becoming a Spaceflight Now Member.</s>SpaceX's Falcon 9 returned to flight, launching successfully from Vandenburg Air Force Base in California today, just four and a half months after a fiery explosion destroyed Facebook's AMOS-6 satellite.

An investigation conducted by SpaceX (with assists from the Air Force, NASA, and the National Transportation Safety Board) concluded that the September 1 explosion was likely caused by a failure of a pressurized second-stage tank.

The company, which is run by billionaire Elon Musk, vowed to change the fueling procedures to prevent the incident from recurring, and the FAA granted a launch license.

The launch today delivered 10 Iridium satellites to low-earth orbit for use in mobile communications.

After separation, the rocket’s first stage landed on the droneship “Just Read the Instructions,” stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX nailed a similar droneship landing back in April. Returning the first stage to earth enables the company to reuse the rocket, drastically reducing the cost of launch.

Musk has said his ultimate goal is to start a colony on Mars by reducing the cost of a one-way trip from $10 billion per person to just $200,000.</s>SpaceX says it successfully launched 10 satellites on first flight since September accident.</s>SpaceX says its first launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since a fiery September accident has successfully placed a constellation of satellites in orbit.

The two-stage rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, at 9:54am Saturday to place 10 satellites into orbit for Iridium Communications Inc.

SpaceX officials say they took corrective action on all possible causes of the Sept. 1 accident that destroyed a Falcon 9 and a satellite on a Florida launch pad.

The return to flight is an important step for SpaceX, a California-based company that has about 70 launches in line for NASA and commercial customers worth more than $10billion.

About nine minutes later, the first stage returned to Earth and landed successfully on a barge in the Pacific Ocean south of Vandenberg.

The explosion at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida destroyed the $62 million rocket and a $200 million communications satellite.

Space X, owned and operated by Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, said earlier this month that accident investigators concluded that a canister of helium inside the rocket's upper-stage oxygen tank had exploded.

In the short term, SpaceX plans to revamp its fueling procedures so that the super-cold liquid oxygen will not build up between the helium tank's liner and its outer covering, it added.

SpaceX said accumulation of oxygen in a void or buckle in the liner most likely led to the explosion.

'In the long term, SpaceX will implement design changes to the (helium canisters) to prevent buckles altogether,' the statement said.</s>SpaceX returned to flight on Saturday after a four-and-a-half-month hiatus.

The private space exploration company — headed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk — took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9:54 a.m. PT, aiming to take 10 satellites into space for voice and data company Iridium.

It marked the company’s first launch since a Falcon 9 rocket exploded at Cape Canaveral in September.

The launch’s success was made even sweeter by a smooth return landing for the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster. It safely returned from space and glided to a landing on a seafaring platform, known as a droneship.

SpaceX — along with rivals such as Blue Origin from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — has been attempting to perfect the rocket landing.

Because rockets are worth tens of millions of dollars, and they have historically been discarded after launch, mastering the landing is key to making space travel more affordable. Saturday’s launch marks the seventh time SpaceX has successfully landed a rocket.

The primary mission Saturday was to deliver 10 Iridium satellites into orbit. Iridium is using the satellites to develop a revamped voice and data communications network, dubbed NEXT.

About 80 Iridium NEXT satellites are scheduled to be deployed, and SpaceX is committed to carrying at least 70 of them. Iridium says the NEXT satellites, delivered to low Earth orbit, are designed to provide “real time connections between people, organizations and assets to and from anywhere.”

Iridium says NEXT “will replace the world’s largest commercial satellite network of low-Earth orbit satellites in what will be one of the largest ‘tech upgrades in history.'”

SpaceX’s high-anticipated launch Saturday was initially scheduled to launch on Monday, but flight plans were canceled because of high winds and rain.

In September, a rocket carrying a satellite to be used by Facebook to bring Internet access to remote areas of the world exploded while awaiting launch.

Facebook is in a partnership with French satellite firm Eutelsat Communications. The satellite, called Amos 6, was owned by Israeli company Spacecom.

Earlier this month, a probe into the cause of the blast concluded that a failed pressure vessel in a liquid oxygen tank was to blame for the failure.
SpaceX returns to flight by placing 10 Iridium NEXT satellites in orbit and successfully recovering the first stage of its Falcon 9 launcher on a droneship.