SpaceX F9 - OneWeb Flight #15 - LC-39A

Grendal · Dec 2, 2022

Launch Date: December 8
Launch Window: 5:27 p.m. EST (2227 GMT)
Launch site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
Booster Recovery: RTLS - LZ-1
Booster Type: B1069.4
Fairings: Reused (5th and 6th)
Orbit: LEO (Polar)
Mass: 40 satellites (150 kg each)
Yearly Launch Number: 55th

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 40 satellites into orbit for OneWeb, which is developing and deploying a constellation of hundreds of satellites in low Earth orbit for low-latency broadband communications. This will be the first launch of OneWeb satellites with SpaceX. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will return to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Eutelsat OneWeb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Cosmacelf · Dec 3, 2022

Wow. A polar launch from Florida, which uses more propellant to make a turn, and then still has enough propellant to land back on land. Shows how dense Starlink could make their stack, and that OneWeb was not able to do the same.

Grendal · Dec 3, 2022

Cosmacelf said:
Wow. A polar launch from Florida, which uses more propellant to make a turn, and then still has enough propellant to land back on land. Shows how dense Starlink could make their stack, and that OneWeb was not able to do the same.

Not as dense as Stalink.

Grendal · Dec 3, 2022

90% chance of weather being good.

bxr140 · Dec 4, 2022

Cosmacelf said:
Shows how dense Starlink could make their stack, and that OneWeb was not able to do the same.

Different input requirements.

One web mass optimized for Soyuz, which didn’t also lead to [much of] a volume constraint. Since cuboid volumes are actually more mass efficient than pancake volumes, there was no reason for OW to deviate from a cuboid volume.

For sure there’s plenty of better optimization on Starlink over OW. This is just not an example.