SpaceX will launch an advanced GPS satellite for the U.S. Space Force from Florida on Tuesday night (Jan. 27), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the GPS III-SV09 spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Tuesday, during a 15-minute window that opens at 11:38 p.m. EST (0438 GMT on Jan. 28). SpaceX and the Space Force had been targeting Monday night (Jan. 26), but bad weather pushed things back a day.
You can watch it live via SpaceX’s website or X account. Coverage will begin about 10 minutes before launch.
The GPS III satellites are built by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and feature “M-Code” technology, which makes them more resistant to jamming than their predecessors, according to Space Force officials.
The first GPS III vehicle lifted off in December 2018. As its name suggests, GPS III-SV09 will be the ninth, out of a planned total of 10, to reach orbit. The final one in the series is expected to go up later this year.
GPS III-SV09 was originally booked to fly on Vulcan Centaur, United Launch Alliance’s powerful new rocket. But the Space Force changed that plan.
“For this launch, we traded a GPS III mission from a Vulcan to a Falcon 9, then exchanged a later GPS IIIF mission from a Falcon Heavy to a Vulcan,” U.S. Space Force Col. Ryan Hiserote, SYD 80 Commander and National Security Space Launch program manager, said in an emailed statement on Jan. 22.
“Our commitment to keeping things flexible — programmatically and contractually — means that we can pivot when necessary to changing circumstances,” he added. “We have a proven ability to adapt the launch manifest to complex and dynamic factors and are continuing to shorten our timelines for delivering critical capabilities to warfighters.”
GPS IIIF, by the way, is the next iteration of satellites the U.S. will use for positioning, navigation and timing. (The “F” stands for “follow-on.”) The first of these spacecraft is expected to launch in Spring 2027.
The Space Force has named GPS III-SV09 after former U.S. Air Force Col. Ellison Onizuka, one of the seven NASA astronauts who died in the space shuttle Challenger accident on Jan. 28, 1986.
Other former astronauts have been so honored as well. For example, GPS III-SV05 was named after Apollo 11 moonwalker Neil Armstrong, and GPS III-SV07 carries the moniker “Sally Ride,” after the first American woman to reach space.
Tuesday’s flight will be the fifth for this particular Falcon 9’s first stage. If all goes according to plan, it will return to Earth about 8.5 minutes after launch, landing vertically on the SpaceX drone ship “A Shortfall of Gravitas” in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage, meanwhile, will deploy “Ellison Onizuka” into medium-Earth orbit about 90 minutes after liftoff.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 1 p.m. ET on Jan. 26 with the new target launch date of Jan. 27.
Author: Mike Wall
Source: Space.com
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
