On June 8, SpaceX launched an Egyptian communications satellite atop a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket. The satellite is owned by Nilesat, a company operated by Egypt's government. The Nilesat-301 satellite is designed to provide Ultra HD television broadcasts and internet service over Northern Africa and the Middle East. A previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on Wednesday at 5:04 p.m. EDT carrying the Nilesat-301 satellite to orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It marked the rocket’s seventh flight. The first-stage booster It is identified as B1062-7, it previously launched the U.S. Space Force's GPS III Space Vehicle 04, GPS III Space Vehicle 05, SpaceX's all-civilian Inspiration4 mission, Axiom Ax-1 private crew flight to the International Space Station, and a pair of Starlink missions.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/wY6SCJSGp7
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 8, 2022
The first-stage booster returned to Earth soon after propelling the Falcon 9 upper-stage to orbit, carrying the Nilesat-301 satellite. B1062-7 landed on the 'Just Read the Instructions' autonomous droneship approximately 8-minutes after liftoff. It marked SpaceX’s 123rd landing of an orbital-class rocket. SpaceX aims to reuse each booster in its Falcon 9 Block 5 fleet at least 10 times. To date, the most a particular booster has been reused is 12 times.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship pic.twitter.com/ARJ0pjjgAl
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 8, 2022
Nilesat-301 is manufactured by Thales Alenia Space. The 4.1-metric ton (~9,000-pounds) Nilesat-301 satellite was deployed by Falcon 9's upper-stage around half-hour after liftoff into Supersynchronous GTO-1600 orbit. The satellite will use its onboard propulsion system to reach its operational location in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (around 36,000 kilometers) over the equator at 7° degrees West longitude slot. Watch a recorded broadcast of this mission in the video linked below, courtesy of SpaceX. The Nilesat-301 mission marked SpaceX’s 23rd launch of the year out of over 50 it has planned for 2022.
Deployment of Nilesat 301 confirmed pic.twitter.com/TOxuyYAICp
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 8, 2022
Featured Images Source: SpaceX
About the Author
Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo
Evelyn J. Arevalo joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover news as a Space Journalist and SpaceX Starbase Texas Correspondent. Evelyn is specialized in rocketry and space exploration. The main topics she covers are SpaceX and NASA.
