Falcon 9 rocket with a communications satellite launched from Cape Canaveral – TASS

NEW YORK, 14 August. / Corr. TASS Aleksey Kachalin /. The American company SpaceX launched a telecommunications satellite for commercial purposes JCSAT 16. Start carrier rocket Falcon 9 was held at 01:26 in time with the US East Coast (8:26 MSK) with the US Air Force base located near the launch site at Cape Canaveral (Florida) .

As SpaceX said, “the flight path in normal”, JCSAT 16 “entered the transition geosynchronous orbit.” Branch unit from the upper stage will occur after approximately 30 minutes.

The satellite was built for the Japanese operator SKY Perfect satellite communications. After displaying the calculated geosynchronous orbit, he will perform a backup transmitter function for the remaining 16 communications satellites of this company. They provide data and visual images in the territory of Japan, Russia and Oceania. The satellite was developed by the American company Space Systems Loral, headquartered in Palo Alto (California), it weighs about 4.6 tons and is designed to operate for 15 years.

SpaceX successfully implement controlled descent bottom stage carrier on an offshore platform, located in the Atlantic Ocean 600 km from Cape Canaveral. As the head of SpaceX Elon Musk, “landing stage on the floating platform is confirmed.” Judging by the broadcast companies, the descent was almost perfect. The stage is in a circumscribed circle for her on the platform

Earlier, SpaceX three times managed to carry out controlled descent of the lower-stage support an offshore platform and once again -. To land it back to the launch site. Prior to this, all previous attempts to keep the exhaust element fails. The SpaceX believe that the re-use of the first stage will allow the company to significantly reduce the cost of business start-ups.

In June, SpaceX launched using two Falcon 9 commercial telecommunications satellites. Washer Eutelsat 117 West and ABS 2A weighing about 2 tons each produced an American company Boeing for the two satellite operators – Eutelsat French and Chinese Asia Broadcast Satellite. Present also was the launch of the eighth mission of the Falcon 9 since the beginning of this year and the 28th since the debut of the carrier rocket in 2010.