SpaceX launches European organization’s weather satellite

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Despite an unfavorable forecast, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off as scheduled at 5:04 p.m. Tuesday, carrying a weather satellite for a European organization. 

The Eumetsat MTG-S1 mission took off from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A at 5:04 p.m. ET, stated SpaceX. 

A 2.5-hour launch window that started at 5:04 p.m. ET had been available. Which meant that the SpaceX had during that timeframe to launch its Falcon 9 rocket. 

Before the launch, the 45th Weather Squadron had forecast just a 20% chance of good liftoff conditions, with the concerns being the cumulus cloud, anvil cloud and surface electric fields rules.

Find out more about the weather criteria for a Falcon 9 launch.

Going up

This is the ninth mission for the Falcon 9’s first-stage booster B1085. This booster has sent up a crewed mission, two lunar spacecraft and a civilian mission around Earth’s polar regions.

1. Crew-9 mission
2. Starlink 6-77 mission
3. Starlink 10-5 mission
4. RRT-1
5. Blue Ghost and HAKUTO-R
6. Fram2 mission
7. Starlink 6-93 mission
8. SXM-10 mission

After the stage separation, the first-stage rocket successfully landed on the droneship Just Read the Instructions that was in the Atlantic Ocean.

About the mission

The weather satellite launched is from the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) that is based in Germany. About 35 minutes into the flight, SpaceX confirmed the successful deployment of the MTG-S1 geostationary weather satellite.

The multi-European country organization monitors the weather, climate and environment through its series of satellites.

Onboard the meteosat third generation satellite is an IRS infrared sounder satellite will be able to observe different layers of Earth’s atmosphere as it will be in a geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Also onboard is the Copernicus Sentinel-4 UVN, which will view and track pollution over Europe from space.