Watch Live Tonight! SpaceX & Japan Launching Satellite Missions @ 8:26 pm ET

[Judi Lynn]

By SPACE.com Staff | December 22, 2017 09:55am ET

SpaceX and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will launch two different missions at almost exactly the same time tonight (Dec. 22) and you can watch it live online here. At 8:26 p.m. EST (0126 GMT), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 10 new Iridium NEXT satellites into orbit for satellite communications provider Iridium. You can watch that launch in the window above beginning at about 8:05 p.m. EST (0105 GMT), courtesy of SpaceX. Scroll down for the JAXA webcast, which begins at 7 p.m. EST (0000 GMT).

"SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will deliver 10 satellites to low-Earth orbit for Iridium, a global leader in mobile voice and data satellite communications. This is the fourth set of 10 satellites in a series of 75 total satellites that SpaceX will launch for Iridium’s next generation global satellite constellation, Iridium NEXT.

"SpaceX is targeting launch of Iridium-4 from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The instantaneous launch window is at 5:27 p.m. PST on Friday, December 22, or 1:27 UTC on Saturday, December 23. The satellites will begin deployment about an hour after launch. A backup launch opportunity is at 5:21 p.m. PST on Saturday, December 23, or 1:21 UTC on Sunday, December 24. Falcon 9’s first stage for the Iridium-4 mission previously supported the Iridium-2 mission from SLC-4E in June 2017. SpaceX will not attempt to recover Falcon 9’s first stage after launch."

Payload

"The payloads for this launch are the fourth set of 10 IridiumSM NEXT satellites. Iridium 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. Iridium has partnered with Thales Alenia Space for the manufacturing, assembly and testing of all 81 Iridium NEXT satellites, 75 of which will be launched by SpaceX. The process of replacing the satellites one-by-one in a constellation of this size and scale has never been completed before.

More:
https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html?utm_source=notification

[miyazaki]

1. Great vid of it here