SpaceX launches Israeli reconnaissance satellite, lands rocket on last flight of 2022
SpaceX ushered in 2022 a few days early with a brilliant night launch from California to launch an Israeli reconnaissance satellite into orbit.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Israeli Earth-imaging satellite EROS C-3 into orbit Vandenberg Space Force base in California late Thursday evening (Dec. 29), with the payload launched into orbit about 15 minutes after leaving Earth. The launch took place at the launch site at 11:38 p.m. PST (2:38 a.m. EST/0738 GMT), with the Falcon 9 first stage returning to land on a nearby SpaceX path about 8 minutes into the flight.
“This is our 61st and final SpaceX launch of 2022,” Jesse Anderson, SpaceX’s production and engineering manager, said during a live webcast.
EROS C-3, short for Earth Resources Observation Satellite C3, is an Earth observation satellite built to “enable defense and intelligence organizations to conduct operations under complete confidentiality and data protection,” according to the Israel-based creator ImageSat International (opens in new tab). It cost about $186 million, according to Space flight now (opens in new tab).
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The very first EROS satellite, EROS A, was launched in 2000 and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere in 2006. Little information is available on the active members of the fleet (EROS-B, EROS-C1 and EROS C2), presumably due to safety concerns. .
EROS-C3 has a resolution of about 30 centimeters for grayscale images and 60 cm for multispectral images, according to Everyday Astronaut. By the end of the decade, it will be part of a quartet of EROS satellites that will operate alongside two synthetic aperture radar satellites.
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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 has launched retrograde to (counter) Earth’s rotation and to deploy EROS-C3 into low Earth orbit. The first stage then performed three burns (a boost-back maneuver, burn on entry, and burn on landing) to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 4 at Vandenberg.
This was the 11th flight for the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. It previously flew two astronaut flights for NASA, two Starlink internet satellite missions and six different uncrewed commercial and NASA missions. The successful landing was the 160th landing of a SpaceX rocket, including Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters.
The launch of the EROS C-3 also marked SpaceX’s second launch in as many days. On Wednesday (December 28), the company launched its first Gen2 Starlink Internet satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida, launching 54 next-generation Starlinks into orbit.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster would land on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. It was launched from and landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Elizabeth Howell is the co-author of “Why am I taller (opens in new tab)(ECW Press, 2022; with Canadian astronaut Dave Williams), a space medicine book. Follow her on Twitter @howellspace (opens in new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
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