Falcon 9 Launches AsiaSat8 into Orbit
Falcon 9 launches AsiaSat8 into orbit. (Credit: SpaceX)
Hong Kong, 5 August 2014 (AsiaSat PR) – AsiaSat8 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle successfully lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, U.S.A. at Hong Kong Time 4:00 p.m. (4:00 a.m. EDT or Cape Canaveral local time) on the 5th of August.
The spacecraft successfully separated from the launch vehicle 32 minutes after liftoff. AsiaSat has acquired the first signals from the satellite in Hong Kong 54 minutes after launch. Over the next few days, AsiaSat 8 will move into the geostationary orbit, some 36,000 km above the Equator.
“We are excited that the AsiaSat 8 launch has achieved this significant milestone. This is our first launch with SpaceX, we would like to thank them for their excellent work and effort in making today’s launch a success. In the coming weeks, we will work closely with Space Systems/Loral, our long-term partner, on the post-launch maneuvers and in-orbit testing of AsiaSat 8,” said William Wade, President and Chief Executive Officer of AsiaSat.
“The addition of AsiaSat8 to our existing fleet of four in-orbit satellites will expand our fleet capacity and enable us to serve a wider range of customers for advanced satellite services, from DTH, data broadcasting to broadband services.”
AsiaSat 8 is a Space Systems/Loral 1300 series satellite, and has a design life of 15 years. With 24 Ku-band transponders and a Ka-band payload, AsiaSat 8 will co-locate with AsiaSat7, where AsiaSat has established networks for service since 1990. AsiaSat 8’s powerful Ku-band beams cover China, India, the Middle East and South East Asia, with inter-beam switching capability to provide flexibility to address market requirements.
About AsiaSat
Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat), the leading satellite operator in Asia, serves over two-thirds of the world’s population with its five satellites, AsiaSat 3S, AsiaSat 4, AsiaSat 5, AsiaSat 7 and the newly launched AsiaSat8. The AsiaSat satellite fleet provides services to both the broadcast and telecommunications industries. Over 450 television and radio channels are now delivered by the company’s satellites offering access to over 710 million TV households across the Asia-Pacific region. AsiaSat also provides telecommunications operators and end users services such as voice networks, private VSAT networks and broadband multimedia. AsiaSat’s next satellite, AsiaSat 6 is scheduled for launch later this month. AsiaSat 9 which is on order from the manufacturer is planned to be launched in 2017. AsiaSat is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings Limited, a company listed on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (Stock Code: 1135). For more information, please visit www.asiasat.com.
30 responses to “Falcon 9 Launches AsiaSat8 into Orbit”
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Wow, quick turnaround.
Hopefully, this continues.
1 day late. Not bad. Now, I wonder if they can launch later this month?
If they can stay on schedule for the rest of the year, then they will have gotten past one of their biggest issues: production. Even if the next landing, along with FH and Dragon Rider fail, none of those are as important as getting these launches going on schedule.
I don’t think FH or Dragon Rider is going to fail and even if they do SpaceX is assimilating all data and continues to progressively build more and more robustness into their Falcon 9; it is Priority One!
I would rather see delays as opposed to failures!
They have an incredible learning curve and a Great example of this is the three 1st Stage Soft Landing attempts!
Well, first off, I do not think that either FH or Dragon Rider are going to fail either.
BUT the delays ARE hurting SpaceX. At this time, they MUST get their production launches going on a decent schedule.
Once they have production launches going steady, I suspect that most western companies will drop other launch systems.
As to the R*D launches, any delays on those is not a big deal.
But, losing one will not be easy.
I Absolutely agree! They are under a microscope from every imaginable direction right now! There are some Very Big Dogs Gunning for SpaceX!!!
But in my mind they need to just stay focused with the tasks they have in front of them!
Once SpaceX has their own private launch fasility up they will be less hampered with launch windows and at the same time be able to stick with their strict launch criteria.
Also, if they can get to the magical number of 7 consecutive launches the Air Force will not be able to keep their certification pushed off!
Well, not sure about their new private space port. It only allows 1 / month, while Kennedy with a lease on the pad, will allow them multiple launches / month, and perhaps / week.
But, that wonderful 7 launches is coming up. It will be done in under 2 months. It should be interesting to see what new lawsuits and BS that ULA and USAF bring up.
I believe that with the judge handing out the surprise of mediation between the Air Force and SpaceX many issues seen and unseen are being addressed!
It’s tantamount to allowing the Air Force a re-do to save face!
At this point SpaceX just NEEDS to Preform and if they can hold their manifest in somewhat of a timely fashion the rest of the ride is downhill…
I think someone noted that mediation is a fairly common practice with U.S. court cases. Gives the judge time to consider the issues and the litigants time to reflect on their cases.
Cheers.
Oh its a common practice but I cannot point to one high profile case where the court has implemented it…
I don’t believe that anyone would have guessed this legal acion would taken this route.
SpaceX has said and shown a willingness to settle out of court.
In a way this course is like a general pre-trial in that the Judge is giving her opinion on the validity of the case…
I actually think this is the best case scenario because a court battle would just drag out…
The Air Force and ULA for that matter can avoid all of the garbage that has thus far risen to the ugly surface… Such as favors given for awarding contracts… Think Aerojet Rocketdyneh!!! 😉
even 1/month is 12 per year, which alone is an impressive launch rate. Plus SpaceX has 3 other launch sites! that could easily allow for 30 or 40 launches per year, with ease – though to do that they’ll need to build a new and much larger manufacturing facility for their rockets. it’s an absolutely wild time we live in.
Exactly!
“…though to do that they’ll need to build a new and much larger manufacturing facility for their rockets.”
That depends on how many times each rocket is used.
good point! you’re right, though there will be some attrition when the Falcon 9 (and possibly the Falcon Heavy’s center core) is used as an expendable launch vehicle.
also they’ll have to keep producing 2nd stages. i’m still iffy on whether or not they can provide adequate yet very lightweight heat shielding to make that reusable. reuse of the 2nd stage will still take several years yet, i think.
Only? If they get to 12 launches a year from just one site, I will do a little happy dance.
I’ll be keeping an eye on youtube for that one.
NSF have run a poll on how many SpaceX launches for 2014. Well they’ve been doing one for several years actually. I voted for 8 this year which turned out to be the most common vote by a reasonable amount. Didn’t look promising earlier on however now looking achievable. Only 3 last year so already surpassed that with 4 so far. Their 4th a couple of days ago and their 5th sheduled for later this month – a record turnaround.
Not 12 mind you but starting to close up on it.
Cheers
There’s no ‘magical’ seven number. The AF have already certified the 3 flights they needed. It’s only the paperwork that needs to be completed now.
Cheers.
You might not be correct there and that might be something that avails itself to change…
And actually I was speaking off the cuff there… And to be honest you still might be correct…
Although I can’t confirm whether or not SpaceX can alter what it signed up for in the EELV certification process there were four options available to SpaceX…
1. A 2 flight certification.
2. A 3 flight certification. (SpaceX chose this option)
3. A 6 flight certification (My Bad I thought it was 7) (The next flight of AsiaSat6 will be flight # 6)
4. Or a 14 flight certification.
The more flights you have the less paperwork you have.
According to a Defense News article
Here:
http://www.defensenews.com/…
There is an infrence to (A KEY in speeding SpaceX’s certification process up…)
Can SpaceX alter it’s course in this process from the 3 flight certification to the 6 flight certification process???
It seems that they can but admittedly its not overly clear…
Credit the following to the Defense News Article:
According to Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, The key to speeding up certification may lie in a decision made early in the process. At the start of certification, a company can choose from four options for the number of launches it will undertake: two, three, six or 14. The more launches, the less technical data it has to submit to the Air Forced.
“There is a lot of information that we require to see when you only have three launches versus 14 launches,” Pawlikowski said. “If they had put forward that they wanted to go into that 14-launch column, then we would have required a lot less in-depth understanding of their processes, both manufacturing and design.”
End of excerpt from Defense News Article.
Again… SpaceX’s next Launch of AsiaSat6 scheduled for August 25th will be the 6th flight of the Falcon 9 v1.1…
And by the time the Air Force is predicting the certification process is complete or May of 2015 SpaceX should have 15 flights under its belt…
If SpaceX is not allowed to alter course on a more speedy Certification process then I believe it lends itself to the next question?
Is the Air Force so willing in its lack of certification dynamics to throw away the tax payers dollars or ($60,000,00.00) to drag things out???
Just Saying and Cheers as well 😉
Yeah good review of the issues.
I also don’t know whether SpaceX can include additional launches however think it unlikely at this point. AF have let their reveiw contract and it’s apparently in full swing. AFAIK SpaceX has provided all the required documentation so far and it’s now being reviewed.
At this point, it seems unlikely that including additional flights would speed the process up.
Perhaps only a court order would do it. LOL.
Cheers.
Agreed… Slow is as Slow gets…
I think the “hurt” is media buzz and politics based. Judging from other reporting, their commercial customers seem more than happy and the rest are getting more and more comfortable with idea of replacing their existing expensive launch providers with SpaceX. I think delays are something satellite companies are quite used to. It’s launch performance together with launch costs and insurance premiums that concern them most.
“Inmarsat has signed a three-launch contract with Space Exploration Technologies Corp.”
“Eutelsat assigns new sat to Arianespace but future plans include SpaceX”
“Sat ops Econ 101 re: SpaceX. AsiaSat 8 launch cost AsiaSat $52.2M. Same sat on ILS Proton: $107M. Even w/ delays, the calculus is simple.”
“Inmarsat’s Pearce on Global Xpress: Despite 6-month delay in global service avail, we still see $500M in GX rev w/in 5 yrs of service start.”
“Inmarsat CEO: If 2nd of our 2 Global Xpress launches still planned on ILS Proton doesn’t happen by next April, we can use SpaceX option.”
well, I am not convinced that the delays do not hurt them. I think that some of the business has gone to Airbus, Russia, and CHina due to delays.
OTOH, with Russia and China having QA issues and blowing up things, that will more than make up for scheduling delays that SpaceX has.
Arianespace has delays with their two sat launch system, Protons fall like ticker tape – everyone has problems. From the sat companies’ point of view, they just need to cover their options and get their sats launched. At the moment SpaceX is still not fully proven and they can’t make the volume to push everyone else out of the market. But unless they start having multiple failures the commercial market is theirs for the taking as soon as they can ramp up the volume.
The current media scrutiny has more affect on near term NASA and DoD/US.gov contracts. Same thing is inevitable there too. They may or may not be able to reverse the 36 ULA cores decision, but by the time that ends, do you really think ULA will find it so easy come 2017/18 or so?.
“Arianespace has delays with their two sat launch system, Protons fall like ticker tape – everyone has problems. From the sat companies’ point of view, they just need to cover their options and get their sats launched.”
Agreed
“At the moment SpaceX is still not fully proven”
Totally disagree. What evidence do you have that this is the case in terms of the commercial market. Perhaps you mean just the government agencies like DoD and certain NASA payloads?
“…and they can’t make the volume to push everyone else out of the market.”
Not sure this is the case now. They say they’ll be at 2 stages production per month by year’s end.
“But unless they start having multiple failures the commercial market is theirs for the taking …”
Yep
“The current media scrutiny has more affect on near term NASA and DoD/US.gov contracts.”
Nope, they don’t take any notice of media.
“They may or may not be able to reverse the 36 ULA cores decision, but by the time that ends, do you really think ULA will find it so easy come 2017/18 or so?.”
Agreed
Cheers.
Source please on that lost business else it’s simply speculation. Just saying.
Cheers
Well, you are correct that this is speculation on my part, so no sources on it.
However, it still makes sense that SpaceX needs to get their schedule going.
I’m not sure where the issue is with delays. Every launch company in history has experienced delays and ULA just recently had a weather one. It’s par for the course.
In addition, SpaceX delays do not appear to be concerning customers and their ramp up rate is one of, if not the fastest for a launch vehicle. This year they’ve done 4 successful launches, one more than their total from 2013 and they’re on track to do another this month and schedule at least 3 more in addition for the year.
Reliability in terms of payload delivery is more important and so far SpaceX are 11 for 11 on their primary payloads with only a test secondary placed in a lower orbit than required. Customer was still happy, got data and insurance payout.
Cheers.
weather delays are different than quality delays. The one thing that I will say for SpaceX is that all of their sensors are doing their jobs and showing when issues crop up. Since F1, their sensors, combined with excellent help from their’s and NASA’s talented intelligent engineers, have kept the missions successful.
However, QA or design has apparently been an issue on the V1.1.
Hopefully that is cleared up and we can see reliable constant delivery.
NASA’s not involved with commercial launches only NASA ones.
Cheers.