SpaceX Launches GPS III Satellite for U.S. Space Force
SpaceX launched the GPS III SV4 navigation satellite for the U.S. Space Force on Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in Florida.
GPS III SV4 is part of the U.S. military’s latest generation of navigation satellites for the Global Positioning System. Lockheed Martin built the spacecraft.
The Falcon 9 booster made an on-time liftoff at 6:24 p.m. EST. The navigation satellite was deployed from the rocket’s second stage 1 hour 29 minutes after launch.
The Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
SpaceX used a new Falcon 9 first stage for the mission. In September, the U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) announced an agreement with SpaceX to launch previously flown first stage boosters on future national security space launch missions.
2 responses to “SpaceX Launches GPS III Satellite for U.S. Space Force”
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Congratulations to SpaceX on another perfect launch! Go Space Force!
Great. They fixed or replaced the preburners. Or maybe this was an old reused F-9. The preburner problem was in new engines. They are replacing an engine on the crew flight because of the problem of vendors stopping up the channels with the masking material that was being removed and SpaceX not finding the problem in acceptance inspecting. Hans said the holes were small and he could see how they missed them. 1/16″. Looks like they could have stuck a needle in to make sure they were clean. He gave a lot of information on the call in , audio only conference a week ago from NASA. I watched it through the tweets at NSF. I do not know if it is available Doug. Maybe NASA U-Tube.