Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, January 15 (Xinhua)-- SpaceX will launch its fifth heavy Falcon rocket on USSF-67 mission, including the CBAS 2 satellite and LDPE-3A ESPAStar platform, at 06:56 Beijing time on January 16.

The rocket will take off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida and fly directly to GEO geostationary orbit. The two boosters are B1064.2 and B1065.2 (Flying USSF-44), respectively, to perform land recovery, while the intermediate core stage B1070 is not recycled.

CTOnews.com learned that the rocket made its debut in February 2018, when it launched Tesla Roadster of SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk into space, and a mannequin in a spacesuit named Starman was specially installed in the driver's seat.

Later, the heavy Falcon rocket was launched again in April 2019 and June 2019, followed by a USSF-44 mission last November.

Like USSF-44, USSF-67 is a classified mission, but the US media did find out the information about the two payloads.

The main payload is a communications satellite called continuous broadcast enhanced Satellite Communications 2 (Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM 2), which will be sent to geostationary orbit about 35700 kilometers above Earth by a Falcon heavy rocket.

According to EverydayAstronaut.com, another shared spacecraft called Long Duration Propulsive ESPA (LDPE)-3A is a payload adapter that can hold up to six small satellites.

According to reports, LDPE-3A will carry five payloads for US space forces, including Catcher and WASSAT for the Space Systems Command (SSC) and three payloads for the US Space Force Rapid capability Office.

Us Space Force officials said the three payloads included "two prototypes to enhance situational awareness and a prototype encryption / interface encryption payload that provides secure air-to-ground communication capabilities".

It is worth mentioning that this "catcher" is a low size, weight, power and cost (low- swap-c) sensor with a mass of only 4 kg, a size of 15cm × 18cm × 10cm and a power of only 9W. It was developed to design a rapid response detection system that can keep up with changing debris and environmental threats in space.

In this mission, the Catcher will test a laser sensor capable of calculating 532, 1064 and 1550 nm laser pulse impacts, a microwave sensor capable of calculating microwave pulse impacts in the 5~18GHz range, a shock sensor for monitoring the acoustic environment caused by debris impacts, and a radiation dosimeter for correctly classifying orbital radiation anomalies.

If successful, similar devices can be deployed on many spacecraft in various orbits to help humans better perceive the space environment around the earth.

Finally, according to the Sandia SSA R & D report provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the "WASSAT" is "a prototype sensor for gazing collection in the geosynchronous satellite belt." It is said to have four COTS (commercial spot) EO (photoelectric) cameras, which will provide a coverage of 20 to 80 degrees.

WASSAT will be mainly used as a prompt sensor for anomaly detection in the first stage, while testing data collection and storage procedures, and transmitting the data to the GEODSS (ground Optoelectronic Deep Space Surveillance) test-bed for abnormal message data filling and algorithm testing.

Officials say LDPE-3A is the third and final LDPE mission, and future flights of similar platforms will be named ROOSTER (Rapid Space Technology Assessment Ring).

Like Falcon 9, the first stage of the Falcon heavy rocket is reusable. The Falcon heavy rocket consists of three modified SpaceX Falcon 9 first stages, with a payload carrying upper stage on top of the central booster.

If all goes according to plan, the booster on both sides will return to Earth shortly after launch and make a vertical landing at the Cape Canaveral Space Force station, while the booster in the middle will not be recovered but will crash directly into the Atlantic Ocean.

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