Falcon 9 to launch 2 Boeing ion drive commsats Sunday (streaming links )

[Dr Mordrid]

ABS-SatMex, aka ABS-3A/Eutelsat 115 West B

Launch: Sunday March 1, 2015
Launch window: 10:50-11:32 PM (2250-2332) EST
Insertion orbit: supersynchronous (400x50,000 km)
Destination: geosynchronous after orbit circularization

Webcasts start ~10:30 PM EST

All are LiveStream mirrors, but the YouTube Events are usually better and Chromecast-able.

LiveStream

http://new.livestream.com/spacex/events/3843470

SpaceX

http://www.spacex.com/webcast

YouTube Event (will appear Sunday)

http://www.YouTube.com/spacex

Satellites: 2 Boeing 702SP commsats. The 702SP is a new breed of commsat which uses no chemical propulsion - just electric Hall Effect thrusters and a much smaller quantity of xenon as a reaction mass. This drastically reduces the mass of the 702SP, allowing them to be launched in pairs (dual manifesting) on launchers smaller than Proton or Ariane 5.

As the bottom pic shows, they're lighter but not really "small."

Patch


Hall-Effect thruster hardware




Stacked Boeing 702SP's

[Greebe]

Watched the launch from my back porch. Quite impressive. The color is a much deeper orange. First stage seperation came with a bright white flash, then blackout.

[Dr Mordrid]

A perfect mission.

Musk just tweeted they launch again in 3 weeks, TurkmenSat, and that Falcon 9 is getting 3 more upgrades that will allow 1st stage landings during geostationary launches:

a 15% thrust upgrade for Merlin 1D

a 10% upper stage tank increase

they're going to start super-cooling the LOX to densify it, probably to -300°F ish, allowing a larger LOX load. These will probably carry over to Falcon Heavy.

Tonight's launch video.

[Dr Mordrid]

@StephenClark1
Source says Falcon 9 hit orbit with apogee near 63000 km, perigee 410 km, inclination 24.8 degrees. Right on target.