SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will send Israel’s Earth-imaging satellite into space overnight early Friday morning (Dec. 30), and you can watch it online for free. The launch is scheduled for 2:17 a.m. EST (December 29 or 11:17 p.m. PST), and coverage will be available on SpaceX’s YouTube channel. SpaceX will launch the Earth Resources Observation Satellite (EROS)-C3 for Israel’s ImageSat International from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It will be SpaceX’s 61st launch of 2022, nearly doubling the then-record 31 launches set for 2021.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is expected to launch retrograde to (against) Earth’s rotation and deploy EROS-C3 into low Earth orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage is then ordered to land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, about eight minutes after liftoff. This will be the 11th flight for the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket. He previously flew two astronaut flights for NASA, two Starlink missions, and six different uncrewed commercial and NASA missions.
The EROS-C series of satellites “enables defense and intelligence organizations to conduct operations in complete confidentiality and data protection,” according to manufacturer ImageSat International. It cost is $186 million, according to Spaceflight Now.
The first ever EROS satellite, EROS A, was launched in 2000 and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere in 2006. Little information is available on the active members of the fleet (EROS-B, EROS-C1 and EROS C2), presumably for security reasons .
EROS-C3 has a resolution of about one foot (30 centimeters) for grayscale images and two feet (60 cm) for multispectral images, according to Everyday Astronaut. By the end of the decade, it will become part of the quartet of EROS satellites, which will operate alongside two synthetic aperture radar satellites.
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