On behalf of South Korea, SpaceX launched a military satellite called ANASIS-II (Army / Navy / Air Force Satellite Information System 2). A first in this field for the aerospace group of Elon Musk.
From the Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida in the United States, the takeoff of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying this Korean military satellite took place on Monday at 2:30 p.m. local time (11:30 p.m. Paris time). About thirty minutes after takeoff, the satellite was successfully deployed.
Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/Tn1kU6LtkB
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 20, 2020
After being injected into geostationary transfer orbit, it is by its own propulsion means that the satellite will maneuver to gain its operational geostationary orbit within two weeks.
Outsourced to Airbus by Lockheed Martin, ANASIS-II is based on the Eurostar platform. According to Airbus, it is the 52 th satellite launched Eurostar E300 and provide secure communications over a wide coverage.
According to a statement from the Korean DAPA (Defense Acquisition Program Administration) quoted by AFP, South Korea becomes the tenth country to have this type of satellite ” exclusively military ” and for ” permanent and secure military communications.“
For SpaceX, the ANASIS-II mission was the opportunity to reuse the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket used during the qualification flight of the Crew Dragon capsule (Crew Dragon Demo-2) to transport astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard the International Space Station.
This means that SpaceX reused the same booster with barely 51 days between two flights and without a major maintenance operation. New record for SpaceX, knowing that the ANASIS-II mission was initially scheduled for July 14 … It was delayed due to a problem on the second stage of Falcon 9.
Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the Just Read the Instructions droneship pic.twitter.com/fPbckYFySh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 20, 2020
This first stage was once again recovered after a landing on an automated barge at sea. Elon Musk also indicated that the fairings used by Falcon 9 were recovered from the nets of ships.