Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Spaceflight Buys Its Own Falcon 9 Rocket

Seattle-based satellite launch services provider Spaceflight announced this morning that it has purchase its own, SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, in order to expand its launch services. According to Spaceflight, its first, dedicated mission--the 2017 Sun Synch Express, will launch in the second half of 2017, and deliver satellites to a sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit. The company said the purchase will allow it to provide more frequent, cost-effective ridesharing to its small satellite customers. Spaceflight said its purchase of its own rocket will help its clients avoid the issues of launch schedule delays and geopolitical issues which can throw off missions. Typically, small satellite customers have piggybacked onto larger satellite launch missions as a secondary payload, meaning their launch schedules can be drastically affected by issues with those primary satellite launches. Spaceflight said its mission will support spacecraft of a mass between 5 to 2500 kg, and hopes to launch yearly, dedicated launch missions beginning with that 2017 mission.