SpaceX will launch an Indonesian communications satellite to orbit and land the returning rocket at sea this evening (June 18), and you can watch the action live.
A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the SATRIA-1 satellite is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida today during a 178-minute window that opens at 6:04 p.m. EDT (2204 GMT).
You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. Coverage is expected to begin about 15 minutes before launch.
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If all goes according to plan, the Falcon 9’s first stage will come back to Earth for a vertical touchdown on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean off the Florida coast. The touchdown is scheduled to take place about 8.5 minutes after liftoff.
It will be the 12th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description. Among those previous efforts were four Dragon missions to the International Space Station for NASA, two of them crewed and two of them robotic resupply flights.
The Falcon 9’s upper stage will continue carrying SATRIA-1 to geosynchronous transfer orbit, ultimately deploying the satellite there just under 37 minutes after liftoff.
SATRIA-1 (whose name is short for “Satellite of the Republic of Indonesia”) will be operated for the Indonesian government by the Indonesian company PSN.
The $550 million spacecraft “is envisioned to boost connectivity inclusion in the country, providing free internet connection to 150,000 public facilities, including schools, regional government offices and health facilities,” according to The Jakarta Post.
“SATRIA-1 will have a throughput capacity of 150 billion bits per second, three times the capacity of the nine telecommunication satellites that Indonesia currently uses,” the outlet added.
