Planned SpaceX launch from Florida to carry first satellite built entirely in Turkey – UPI.com
July 8 (UPI) — SpaceX is targeting a Monday afternoon launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying aloft Turkey’s first home-grown communications satellite.
The launch at 6:30 p.m. EDT can be viewed online.
Turkey has had satellites launched before but this is the first one to be entirely built in the Middle East nation. Turkey is just the 11th country capable of manufacturing its own communications satellites.
In December 2021, SpaceX launched the Turksat 5B communications satellite to geostationary orbit 22,236 miles above Earth. It joined Turksat 5A, which flew in January 2021 during the Cape’s first rocket launch of that year.
Monday’s planned flight could be affected by adverse weather, though.
“Weather is currently 30% favorable during the four-hour launch window that opens at 5:21 p.m.,” SpaceX posted on X.
A weak ridge is forecast to bring afternoon thunderstorms and could produce winds of 40 mph or greater.
If it goes up, the Falcon 9 first stage will launch for a 15th time.
It was part of SpaceX’s 26th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station on Nov. 9. It has also sent into orbit the 16th batch of OneWeb satellites and eight Starlink flights.
The booster will land on the SpaceX droneship Just Read the Instructions about 8 minutes after launch.
The Turksat 6A satellite will be released to its temporary orbit about 70 minutes after liftoff.
“Our local and national communication satellite, which will have a power of 7.5 kilowatts, will have 20 transponders,” Abdulkadir Uraloglu, Turkey’s Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, said in a September 2023 news release. “Our TURKSAT 6A satellite will serve in Ku Band and will also provide service in new geography such as South-East Asia, which could not be covered by previous Turksat satellites.”
The satellite will provide data relay for civil and military communications to the Anatolian peninsula as well as most of the European continent, the Middle East and the westernmost part of the Russian federation, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex reported.
The 9,400-pound satellite is designed to have a 15-year lifespan and will increase the reach of Turkey’s satellites “from 3.5 billion to 5 billion” people, Uraloglu said.
