STP-2
Falcon Heavy
SpaceX
Mission
STP-2
Type: Dedicated Rideshare
Launch Cost: $90,000,000
The STP-2 payload is composed of 25 small spacecraft. Included is COSMIC-2 constellation to provide radio occultation data, along with 8 cubesat nanosatellites.
Other payloads include LightSail carried by the Prox-1 nanosatellite, Oculus-ASR nanosatellite, GPIM and the Deep Space Atomic Clock.
Location
Launch Complex 39A
Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA
211 rockets have launched from Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA.
Rocket
Falcon Heavy – SpaceX
Family: Falcon
Length: 70 m
Diameter: 12.2 m
Launch Mass: 1400 T
Low Earth Orbit Capacity: 63800 kg
The Falcon Heavy was manufactured by SpaceX with the first launch on 2018-02-06. Falcon Heavy has 4 successful launches and 0 failed launches with a total of 4 launches. The Falcon Heavy is a variant of the Falcon 9 full thrust launch vehicle and consists of a standard Falcon 9 rocket core, with two additional boosters derived from the Falcon 9 first stage.
Strap-On Booster Landing
The side boosters will attempt to land at LZ-1 and LZ-2.
Landing Zone 2 – LZ-2
LZ-2 Pad located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at the previous LC-13. Directly next to LZ-1
Return to Launch Site – RTLS
A return to launch site usually means that after stage separation the booster flips and does a burn back towards the launch site, landing near where it initially launched from.
Core Landing
The center core was not able to land successfully on OCISLY, this however was SpaceX’s most ambitious landing attempt to date.
Of Course I Still Love You – LZ-2
The second ASDS barge, Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY) services launches in the Pacific Ocean and was the site of the first landing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage during CRS-8, the launch of a Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.
Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship – ASDS
An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) is an ocean-going vessel derived from a deck barge, outfitted with station-keeping engines and a large landing platform. Construction of such ships was commissioned by aerospace company SpaceX to allow for recovery of rocket first-stages at sea for high-velocity missions which do not carry enough fuel to return to the launch site after lofting spacecraft onto an orbital trajectory.
Strap-On Booster Landing
The side boosters will attempt to land at LZ-1 and LZ-2.
Landing Zone 1 – LZ-2
LZ-1 Pad located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at the previous LC-13
Return to Launch Site – RTLS
A return to launch site usually means that after stage separation the booster flips and does a burn back towards the launch site, landing near where it initially launched from.
Agency
SpaceX
Type: Commercial
Abbreviation: SpX
Administration: CEO: Elon Musk
Founded: 2002
Launchers: Falcon
Spacecraft: Dragon
Country: USA
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. SpaceX operates from many pads, on the East Coast of the US they operate from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. They also operate from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, usually for polar launches. Another launch site is being developed at Boca Chica, Texas.
