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Tag Archives: counting
Intermittent fasting and calorie counting about equal for weight loss, according to new study – Salon
- Intermittent fasting and calorie counting about equal for weight loss, according to new study Salon
- Intermittent fasting and calorie-counting give similar weight-loss results, study finds. The best diet is the one you can stick to, experts say. Yahoo Life
- Once again, eating less, less often shown to help people manage their weight Boing Boing
- Intermittent fasting is as effective as calorie counting for weight loss, study finds KPRC Click2Houston
- Daytime-restricted feeding enhances running endurance without prior exercise in mice Nature.com
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Watch live: SpaceX counting down to launch of Intelsat satellite with NASA air quality sensor – Spaceflight Now – Spaceflight Now
- Watch live: SpaceX counting down to launch of Intelsat satellite with NASA air quality sensor – Spaceflight Now Spaceflight Now
- Watch SpaceX launch an Intelsat satellite with NASA’s TEMPO experiment tonight Space.com
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Counting On’s Jessa Duggar Shares ‘Jarring’ Miscarriage News of Baby No. 5 in Tearful Video – Yahoo Entertainment
- Counting On’s Jessa Duggar Shares ‘Jarring’ Miscarriage News of Baby No. 5 in Tearful Video Yahoo Entertainment
- Jessa Duggar Reveals She Suffered a Miscarriage over the Holidays PEOPLE
- Jessa Duggar Reveals She Suffered Miscarriage With Baby No. 5 in Emotional Video: ‘Nothing Could’ve Prepared Me for the Weight of Those Words’ Us Weekly
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Presidential Vote Counting to Get Revamp After Donald Trump Tried to Reverse 2020 Loss
WASHINGTON—For the first time in more than a century, Congress is poised to pass legislation that would revamp the process of certifying presidential electors, a direct response to efforts by former President
Donald Trump
and his supporters to overturn the 2020 election results.
The Electoral Count Reform Act has been attached to a $1.65 trillion yearlong spending package currently moving through Congress that is expected to become law this week. The ECRA is the result of nearly a year of bipartisan Senate negotiations to update an 1887 law that came into focus during the certification of the presidential results on Jan. 6, 2021.
Current law requires Congress to convene for a joint session on Jan. 6 after a presidential election to count and ratify the 538 electoral votes certified by the 50 states and District of Columbia. The vice president, serving as president of the Senate, has the duty to count the votes in a joint session of Congress.
In 2021, Mr. Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject some electors unilaterally. Mr. Pence refused, saying such a move was beyond his power. After Mr. Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol in a speech on the Ellipse, a pro-Trump mob overran the Capitol, temporarily interrupting the proceedings. After Congress reconvened, 139 House Republicans and eight Senate Republicans voted against certifying the election results.
The new legislation would make it clear that the vice president’s role is merely to count the votes publicly and that he or she has no power to alter the results. It also would significantly raise the threshold to sustain an objection to a state’s electors to one-fifth of both chambers, up from one House member and one senator now.
The proposal would also provide for an expedited federal court challenge if a state attempts to delay or tamper with election results. The bill holds that the court decision is final and requires Congress to accept that decision.
The current Electoral Count Act “is a time bomb under democracy, and we learned on Jan. 6 that its ambiguities and confusing terms are very dangerous,” said Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Sen.
Susan Collins
(R., Maine) credited the work of a group of 15 senators who span the ideological spectrum in negotiating the bill. “The events of Jan. 6 clearly brought home the flaws in the law,” she said.
The Biden administration called the changes “a vital piece of legislation.”
Sen.
Josh Hawley
(R., Mo.) said he opposed changes to the current law. Mr. Hawley was the first senator to say he would object to the results of the 2020 presidential election, a move that forced lawmakers to debate and vote to affirm the states’ tallies on Jan. 6, 2021. As Mr. Hawley entered the Capitol ahead of the joint session that day, he was photographed fist-pumping to cheers from the pro-Trump crowd gathered outside.
“I think it’s fine, this is the democratic process,” Mr. Hawley said about the current rules. “I don’t think the objection caused the riot.”
Other lawmakers have used the process outlined in the Electoral Count Act to object to election results in recent years. Some Democrats objected, unsuccessfully, to certification of both of former President
George W. Bush
‘s wins as well as Mr. Trump’s.
In both cases the Democratic nominee for president had already conceded and wasn’t supportive of the objections. Mr. Trump has continued to call for overturning the results and to claim falsely that he won the 2020 election.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack made four criminal referrals for Mr. Trump to the Justice Department on Monday after investigating the lead-up and attack itself. Mr. Trump has denied wrongdoing related to the riot. The Justice Department is currently conducting a parallel investigation of the events.
“I don’t care whether they change The Electoral Count Act or not, probably better to leave it the way it is so that it can be adjusted in case of Fraud,” Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday.
Mr. Trump has said the planned changes show that the vice president did indeed have the power to block electors under current law. Backers say they are trying to eliminate any loopholes that could be exploited by future candidates, including Mr. Trump.
Among the Electoral Count Reform Act provisions included in this week’s spending package is a requirement that each state’s governor, unless specified in the state’s laws or constitution, submit the slate of electors. That would keep states from submitting false electors as some sought to do in 2020.
It also would prevent state legislatures from overriding the popular vote in their states by declaring a “failed election,” except in narrowly defined “extraordinary and catastrophic” events.
Edward Foley, the director of Election Law at Ohio State University said the bill’s most significant provision is making sure the courts are the final backstop in case of false electors.
“We can look to courts as being the branch of government that is most immune from this kind of political denialism,” he said.
The version included in the spending bill is the Senate version, which had 38 co-sponsors, including both Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer
(D., N.Y.) and Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell
(R., Ky.).
In September, the House passed its own version of the legislation, 229-203. Nine Republicans joined Democrats in voting to pass the House bill. None of them are returning to Congress next year.
Write to Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com and Lindsay Wise at lindsay.wise@wsj.com
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Republicans in Strong Position to Retake House as Counting Continues
WASHINGTON—Republicans remained poised to win control of the House of Representatives with more than a dozen races still uncalled Monday, as Congress returned to work and new members set to take office next year began orientation.
Democrats are projected to hold their Senate majority after a weekend win in Nevada, giving them the 50 seats needed to control the chamber. A final Senate race, in Georgia, is set for a runoff on Dec. 6 because neither candidate got a majority.
In the House, the GOP appeared on track to win the barest of majorities, nonpartisan analysts said. On Sunday night, additional vote tallies in California and Arizona put Republican candidates in striking distance of victory, though those races hadn’t been called.
“Dems’ dreams of holding the House majority probably died tonight,” David Wasserman, the House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, tweeted Sunday, referring to shifts toward Republicans in three races in those states.
Republicans currently have won 212 House seats with Democrats at 204, according to the Associated Press tally. A party needs 218 for a majority in the chamber. The GOP could end up only a couple of seats above that number, and the party got a boost Sunday by flipping a seat held by Democrats in Oregon.
Headed into the election, Democrats had a 220-212 majority, with three vacancies.
The possibility of an extremely narrow GOP majority is already creating challenges for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.). Mr. McCarthy is running to be speaker assuming Republicans take back the House, but he is meeting resistance from his party’s right flank, which now has greater leverage to influence the vote.
Mr. McCarthy will need a simple majority of his conference during Tuesday’s leadership vote, to be selected as the party’s preference for leader. To become speaker, he will need a majority of the full House in a vote in January.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) plans to run against Mr. McCarthy for the post, according to people familiar with the matter. The ally of former President
Donald Trump
is unlikely to get enough votes to win, but the candidacy could provide a gauge of opposition to Mr. McCarthy.
Allies of Mr. McCarthy made calls to Democratic Rep.
Henry Cuellar
of Texas over the weekend and asked him if he would switch parties to expand the GOP majority, according to five people familiar with the calls.
Mr. Cuellar turned them down, according to multiple people. A spokesman for Mr. McCarthy said the calls weren’t made at the request of Mr. McCarthy. “Anyone suggesting this is simply exercising in fan fiction,” said spokesman Mark Bednar.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell
(R., Ky.) was also facing pushback from some of his Republican members, who questioned whether the party should delay the leadership election until after the Georgia runoff, in which Republican
Herschel Walker
is facing Democratic incumbent Sen.
Raphael Warnock.
The Senate GOP elections are set for Wednesday.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The Senate GOP elections are set for Wednesday.
Photo:
SARAH SILBIGER/REUTERS
New members are in Washington this week for orientation. Some who hadn’t had their races called were also invited and would be included in leadership votes. House Democrats will vote for their leadership later this month and the Senate is expected to keep their same top leaders.
Democrats had performed better than expected in the midterm elections, even with the anticipated loss of the House majority. They picked up a GOP-held Senate seat and flipped some House seats, including in Washington over the weekend.
Of the remaining uncalled competitive House races, a half-dozen were in California. They included the re-election contests of Democratic Reps.
Katie Porter
and
Mike Levin
and GOP Reps. David Valadao, Mike Garcia and Michelle Steel as well as one open seat. Both parties were also intensely watching close contests in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon.
While the contest for House control continued, Senate Democrats celebrated their victory, and the closely watched gubernatorial race in Arizona between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat
Katie Hobbs
remained too close to call. Ms. Hobbs was ahead Sunday evening by about 1 percentage point, with about 160,000 more ballots expected to be counted.
While Ms. Lake had a path to victory, she would need to overperform in all remaining ballots. The campaign manager for Ms. Hobbs, the Arizona secretary of state, released a statement Sunday night calling her “the unequivocal favorite to become the next governor of Arizona.”
Write to Eliza Collins at eliza.collins+1@wsj.com. and Chad Day at Chad.Day@wsj.com
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Wisconsin lawmaker sues to stop immediate counting of military ballots
MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin lawmaker who has been a frequent promoter of false election claims is suing to prevent the immediate counting of military ballots in her state after she received three ballots under fake names.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, was brought by a veterans group and three individuals, including Rep. Janel Brandtjen (R), the chairwoman of the State Assembly’s elections committee.
Last week, Brandtjen received three military ballots under fictitious names that were allegedly sent to her by Kimberly Zapata, a Milwaukee election official. Election officials have criticized Brandtjen for spreading false claims about the system, and Zapata later told prosecutors she was trying to alert Brandtjen about an actual weakness in the state’s voting system that should be addressed.
Unlike most states, Wisconsin allows military members to cast ballots without registering to vote or providing proof of residency. Military ballots make up a tiny fraction of votes in Wisconsin — about 1,400 so far for Tuesday’s election.
Brandtjen and the others are using the incident to argue that military ballots should not be counted unless election officials can show they complied with a state law requiring them to maintain lists of all eligible military voters.
Brandtjen’s attorney, Erick Kaardal of the conservative Thomas More Society, said state officials have handled elections in a way that is “conducive to vote fraud.”
Will Attig, director of the Union Veterans Council, expressed alarm at the attempt to prevent counting military ballots.
“These are service members defending our country that have the right to vote and their means to vote is by mail,” he said. “We’ve got what to me appears to be an orchestrated plan by election deniers who do not truly support our democracy.”
SpaceX counting down to late-night launch for Eutelsat – Spaceflight Now
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket will launch Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13G geostationary communications satellite. Follow us on Twitter.
SFN Live
SpaceX is poised to launch a Falcon 9 rocket early Thursday from Cape Canaveral with Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13G television broadcasting satellite. Liftoff is targeted for the end of the night’s launch window at 1:22 a.m. EDT (0522 GMT). The Falcon 9’s first stage booster will target landing on a downrange drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Ground teams rolled the Falcon 9 to pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Wednesday, the day after SpaceX launched a powerful Falcon Heavy rocket from pad 39A a few miles up the coast. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 was raised vertical on pad 40 Wednesday afternoon ahead of the overnight launch window.
Forecasters from the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predict a 90% probability of favorable weather for liftoff, with only a slight chance of cumulus clouds that might create a threat of lightning.
Built by Airbus, the roughly 10,000-pound (4.5-metric ton) Hotbird 13G spacecraft will beam hundreds of television and radio channels across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Hotbird 13G is the twin satellite of Hotbird 13F, which launched Oct. 15 on a previous SpaceX Falcon 9 mission. The two Hotbirds are the first satellites to be built on Airbus’s new Eurostar Neo spacecraft design, incorporating upgrades in propulsion, thermal control, and electrical systems.
During Thursday morning’s countdown, the Falcon 9 launcher will be filled with a million pounds of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants in the final 35 minutes before liftoff.
After teams verify technical and weather parameters are all “green” for launch, the nine Merlin 1D main engines on the first stage booster will flash to life with the help of an ignition fluid called triethylaluminum/triethylborane, or TEA-TEB. Once the engines ramp up to full throttle, hydraulic clamps will open to release the Falcon 9 for its climb into space.
The nine main engines will produce 1.7 million pounds of thrust for about two-and-a-half minutes, propelling the Falcon 9 and Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13G communications satellite into the upper atmosphere. Then the booster stage — tail number B1067 in SpaceX’s fleet — will shut down and separate from the Falcon 9’s upper stage.
The booster will extend titanium grid fins and pulse cold gas thrusters to orient itself for a tail-first entry back into the atmosphere, before reigniting its engines for a braking burn and a final landing burn, targeting a vertical descent to the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” parked about 420 miles (about 675 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.
A successful rocket landing on the drone ship will mark the completion of the booster’s seventh flight to space. The booster debuted June 3, 2021, with the launch of a Dragon cargo mission to the International Space Station, and launched two astronaut crews into space on NASA’s Crew-3 and Crew-4 missions. It has also launched the Turksat 5B communications satellite, another space station resupply mission, and most recently a batch of Starlink internet satellites on Sept. 18.
For the Hotbird 13G mission, the Falcon 9 rocket will fire its upper stage engine two times to inject the spacecraft into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit with an apogee, or high point, more than 30,000 miles (50,000 kilometers) above Earth.
Hotbird 13G will separate from the Falcon 9 rocket about 36 minutes into the mission.
After deploying from the Falcon 9 launcher to begin its journey toward geostationary orbit, Hotbird 13G unfurl solar panels and use PPS5000 plasma orbit-raising thrusters developed by the French company Safran for several months of orbit-raising maneuvers to reach a circular geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.
The fuel-efficient plasma propulsion system relies on xenon gas and electricity to generate thrust, rather than a conventional liquid rocket fuel like hydrazine. That reduces the weight of the satellite, allowing engineers to launch on a smaller rocket or add additional payloads to support more communications capacity for customers.
But the orbit-raising using electric propulsion takes longer than maneuvers relying on conventional rocket engines.
Hotbird 13G, like its predecessor Hotbird 13F, will orbit in lock-step with Earth’s rotation at 13 degrees east longitude.
By the middle of next year, Hotbird 13G should be ready to enter commercial service to start a 15-year mission broadcasting television programming to Eutelsat customers. Thanks to improvements in satellite communications technology, Eutelsat will only need two new Hotbird satellites to replace the three aging Hotbird spacecraft operating at 13 degree east.
Pascal Homsy, Eutelsat’s chief technical officer, said the Hotbird fleet at 13 degrees east form the highest capacity satellite broadcasting system covering the Europe, Middle East, and North Africa regions, delivering 1,000 TV channels to more than 160 million homes. Hotbird 13F and 13G will broadcast signals in Ku-band frequencies.
“We have something like over 600 pay TV channels, 300 free to air channels, 450 high definition TV, and 14 ultra high definition channels broadcast from this flagship 13 degrees east position,” Homsy said last month before the launch of Hotbird 13F. “We are able also to provide 500 radio stations and multimedia services.”
The launch of Hotbird 13G will mark SpaceX’s 51st mission of 2022, and the second in a series of three Falcon 9 flights for Eutelsat. The Eutelsat 10B communications satellite, designed to provide in-flight internet connectivity to airline passengers, was delivered from Europe to Cape Canaveral by boat last week for a launch on a Falcon 9 rocket later this month.
ROCKET: Falcon 9 (B1067.7)
PAYLOAD: Hotbird 13G communications satellite
LAUNCH SITE: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
LAUNCH DATE: Nov. 2/3, 2022
LAUNCH WINDOW: 11:26 p.m. – 1:22 a.m. EDT (0326-0522 GMT)
WEATHER FORECAST: 90% probability of acceptable weather
BOOSTER RECOVERY: “Just Read the Instructions” drone ship
LAUNCH AZIMUTH: East
TARGET ORBIT: Geostationary transfer orbit
LAUNCH TIMELINE:
- T+00:00: Liftoff
- T+01:12: Maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q)
- T+02:32: First stage main engine cutoff (MECO)
- T+02:35: Stage separation
- T+02:43: Second stage engine ignition
- T+03:23: Fairing jettison
- T+06:30: First stage entry burn ignition (three engines)
- T+06:55: First stage entry burn ends
- T+08:08: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 1)
- T+08:22: First stage landing burn ignition (one engine)
- T+08:44: First stage landing
- T+29:11: Second stage engine restart
- T+30:10: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 2)
- T+36:11: Hotbird 13G separation
MISSION STATS:
- 184th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010
- 193rd launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006
- 7th launch of Falcon 9 booster B1067
- 157th Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast
- 102nd Falcon 9 launch from pad 40
- 157th launch overall from pad 40
- 125th flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster
- 4th SpaceX launch for Eutelsat
- 50th Falcon 9 launch of 2022
- 51st launch by SpaceX in 2022
- 48th orbital launch attempt based out of Cape Canaveral in 2022
Email the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.
SpaceX counting down to late-night launch from Cape Canaveral – Spaceflight Now
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket will launch Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13F geostationary communications satellites. Follow us on Twitter.
SFN Live
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set for blastoff at 1:22 a.m. EDT (0522 GMT) Saturday with Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13F television broadcasting satellite. The mission will mark the 100th launch by SpaceX from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Built by Airbus, the 9,868-pound (4,476-kilogram) Hotbird 13F spacecraft will beam hundreds of television and radio channels across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Hotbird 13F is the first satellite to be built on Airbus’s new Eurostar Neo spacecraft design, incorporating upgrades in propulsion, thermal control, and electrical systems.
The 116-minute launch window opens at 11:26 p.m. EDT Friday (0326 GMT Saturday) and runs until 1:22 a.m. (0522 GMT). Forecasters from the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predict a 90% probability of favorable weather for liftoff, with only a slight chance of cumulus clouds that might create a threat of lightning.
A frontal boundary moved through Central Florida earlier Friday.
“Drier, cooler air along with higher winds filtering in from the north in the wake of the front should tamper any significant shower coverage this weekend and result in favorable launch conditions for both the primary and backup launch opportunities,” the weather team wrote in the official launch weather forecast.
SpaceX delayed the launch time Friday night to the end of the launch window to allow additional time for data review. The company did not elaborate on the reason for the data review.
The launch Friday night will be the fourth flight of a Falcon 9 rocket this month, following three Falcon 9 launches in as many days last week.
In preparation for Friday night’s launch, SpaceX ground crews rolled the Falcon 9 rocket and its commercial satellite payload to pad 40, then raised it vertical over the flame trench earlier in the day Friday. During Friday’s countdown, the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher will be filled with a million pounds of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants in the final 35 minutes before liftoff.
After teams verify technical and weather parameters are all “green” for launch, the nine Merlin 1D main engines on the first stage booster will flash to life with the help of an ignition fluid called triethylaluminum/triethylborane, or TEA-TEB. Once the engines ramp up to full throttle, hydraulic clamps will open to release the Falcon 9 for its climb into space.
The nine main engines will produce 1.7 million pounds of thrust for about two-and-a-half minutes, propelling the Falcon 9 and Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13F communications satellite into the upper atmosphere. Then the booster stage — tail number B1069 in SpaceX’s fleet — will shut down and separate from the Falcon 9’s upper stage.
The booster will extend titanium grid fins and pulse cold gas thrusters to orient itself for a tail-first entry back into the atmosphere, before reigniting its engines for a braking burn and a final landing burn, targeting a vertical descent to the drone ship “Just Read the Instructions” parked about 400 miles (about 640 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.
A successful rocket landing on the drone ship will mark the completion of the booster’s third flight to space, following launch last December on a cargo mission to the International Space Station and then on Aug. 27 with a batch of Starlink internet satellites.
The booster was damaged, apparently due to rough seas, after landing on its first mission in December. SpaceX repaired the rocket and returned it to the active rotation of Falcon 9 boosters in August.
On Friday night’s mission, the Falcon 9 rocket will fire its upper stage engine two times to inject the Hotbird 13F spacecraft into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit with an apogee, or high point, more than 20,000 miles above Earth.
Hotbird 13F will separate from the Falcon 9 rocket about 36 minutes into the mission.
After flying free of its SpaceX launcher, Hotbird 13F will unfurl solar panels and switch on its plasma propulsion system for several months of orbit-raising maneuver to reach a circular geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. The orbit-raising using electric propulsion takes longer than maneuvers relying on conventional rocket engines.
Hotbird 13F will orbit in lock-step with Earth’s rotation at 13 degrees east longitude.
By the middle of next year, Hotbird 13F should be ready to enter commercial service to start a 15-year mission broadcasting television programming to Eutelsat customers. Hotbird 13G, set for launch in November on another Falcon 9 rocket, will follow about a month after its twin satellite, heading for the same position in geostationary orbit.
“Hotbird 13F is the first of two satellites to be placed at the Eutelsat flagship 13 degrees east position, so this is an important event for us,” said Pascal Homsy, Eutelsat’s chief technical officer. “It will be the first satellite based on the electric propulsion Eurostar Neo platform by Airbus, fostering innovation and competitiveness in the European space industry.”
Thanks to improvements in satellite communications technology, Eutelsat will only need two new Hotbird satellites to replace the three aging Hotbird spacecraft operating at 13 degree east.
Homsy said the Hotbird fleet at 13 degrees east form the highest capacity satellite broadcasting system covering the Europe, Middle East, and North Africa regions, delivering 1,000 TV channels to more than 160 million homes. Hotbird 13F and 13G will broadcast signals in Ku-band frequencies.
“We have something like over 600 pay TV channels, 300 free to air channels, 450 high definition TV, and 14 ultra high definition channels broadcast from this flagship 13 degrees east position,” Homsy said. “We are able also to provide 500 radio stations and multimedia services.”
ROCKET: Falcon 9 (B1069.3)
PAYLOAD: Hotbird 13F communications satellite
LAUNCH SITE: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
LAUNCH DATE: Oct. 14/15, 2022
LAUNCH WINDOW: 11:26 p.m. – 1:22 a.m. EDT (0326-0522 GMT)
WEATHER FORECAST: 90% probability of acceptable weather
BOOSTER RECOVERY: “Just Read the Instructions” drone ship
LAUNCH AZIMUTH: East
TARGET ORBIT: Geostationary transfer orbit
LAUNCH TIMELINE:
- T+00:00: Liftoff
- T+01:12: Maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q)
- T+02:32: First stage main engine cutoff (MECO)
- T+02:35: Stage separation
- T+02:42: Second stage engine ignition
- T+03:22: Fairing jettison
- T+06:29: First stage entry burn ignition (three engines)
- T+06:57: First stage entry burn ends
- T+08:07: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 1)
- T+08:22: First stage landing burn ignition (one engine)
- T+08:45: First stage landing
- T+29:12: Second stage engine restart
- T+30:10: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 2)
- T+36:11: Hotbird 13F separation
MISSION STATS:
- 181st launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010
- 189th launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006
- 3rd launch of Falcon 9 booster B1069
- 155th Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast
- 100th Falcon 9 launch from pad 40
- 155th launch overall from pad 40
- 122nd flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster
- 3rd SpaceX launch for Eutelsat
- 47th Falcon 9 launch of 2022
- 47th launch by SpaceX in 2022
- 45th orbital launch attempt based out of Cape Canaveral in 2022
Email the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.
SpaceX counting down to another Starlink launch from Florida – Spaceflight Now
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Starlink 4-35 mission will launch SpaceX’s next batch of 52 Starlink broadband satellites. Follow us on Twitter.
SFN Live
Another group of 52 Starlink internet satellites will rocket into orbit Saturday night from Cape Canaveral on top of a Falcon 9 launcher, continuing deployment of SpaceX’s global broadband network now accessible from all seven continents.
The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket is set to lift of from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:32:10 p.m. EDT (2332:10 GMT) Saturday. SpaceX has a backup launch time available at 8:51 p.m. EDT (0051 GMT).
The 52 Starlink satellites on-board the Falcon 9 will add to SpaceX’s consumer-grade, high-speed, low-latency internet network. Subscribers can now connect to the Starlink network in more than 40 countries and territories.
Antarctica is one of the most recent regions where Starlink internet service is available. The National Science Foundation announced earlier this month that the agency is working with SpaceX to test the Starlink service at the agency’s McMurdo Station.
NSF-supported USAP scientists in #Antarctica are over the moon! Starlink is testing polar service with a newly deployed user terminal at McMurdo Station, increasing bandwidth and connectivity for science support. pic.twitter.com/c3kLGk8XBV
— National Science Foundation (@NSF) September 14, 2022
“Starlink is now active on all continents, including Antarctica,” tweeted Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO.
With 52 more satellites on the way to join the constellation Saturday night, SpaceX will move closer to fully deploying its initial fleet of 4,400 Starlink spacecraft. After Saturday night’s mission, SpaceX will have sent 3,399 Starlink satellites into orbit, including prototypes and failed spacecraft. The company currently has around 3,000 functioning Starlink satellites in space, with about 2,500 operational and another 500 moving into their operational orbits, according to a tabulation by Jonathan McDowell, an expert tracker of spaceflight activity and an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The launch Sunday night, designated Starlink 4-35, will be SpaceX’s 43rd launch of the year.
About 15 minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage will released the 52 Starlink satellites over the North Atlantic Ocean traveling at a velocity of some 17,000 mph.
The Starlink 4-35 mission is the fourth Falcon 9 mission of the month. SpaceX is tentatively planning one more Falcon 9 launch with additional Starlink satellites before the end of September, but that schedule hinges on potential impacts from soon-to-be Hurricane Ian, which is forecast to threaten Florida next week.
SpaceX plans to complete more than 60 missions this year, an average of about one launch every six days.
The higher launch rate has been aided by shorter turnarounds between missions at launch pads in Florida and California, and SpaceX’s reuse of Falcon 9 boosters and payload fairings. Launches carrying satellites for SpaceX’s own Starlink internet network, like the mission Saturday night, have accounted for about two-thirds of the company’s Falcon 9 flights so far this year.
The Falcon 9 booster set to launch Saturday night is numbered B1073 in SpaceX’s inventory of reusable rockets. The booster debuted May 14 with a launch carrying Starlink satellites, then flew again June 29 with the SES 22 commercial communications satellite. Most recently, the booster launched and landed Aug. 9 on another Starlink mission. Now it’s set to fly to space for the fourth time, with another landing planned on SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Stationed inside a launch control center just south of Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for Saturday night’s countdown, SpaceX’s launch team will begin loading super-chilled, densified kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the Falcon 9 vehicle at T-minus 35 minutes.
Helium pressurant will also flow into the rocket in the last half-hour of the countdown. In the final seven minutes before liftoff, the Falcon 9’s Merlin main engines will be thermally conditioned for flight through a procedure known as “chilldown.” The Falcon 9’s guidance and range safety system will also be configured for launch.
After liftoff, the Falcon 9 rocket will vector its 1.7 million pounds of thrust — produced by nine Merlin engines — to steer northeast over the Atlantic Ocean.
The rocket will exceed the speed of sound in about one minute, then shut down its nine main engines two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff. The booster stage will release from the Falcon 9’s upper stage, then fire pulses from cold gas control thrusters and extend titanium grid fins to help steer the vehicle back into the atmosphere.
Two braking burns will slow the rocket for landing on the drone ship “A Shortfall Of Gravitas” around 400 miles (650 kilometers) downrange approximately nine minutes after liftoff.
The Falcon 9’s reusable payload fairing will jettison during the second stage burn. A recovery ship is also on station in the Atlantic to retrieve the two halves of the nose cone after they splash down under parachutes.
Landing of the first stage on Sunday’s mission will occur moments after the Falcon 9’s second stage engine cuts off to deliver the Starlink satellites into orbit. Separation of the 52 Starlink spacecraft, built by SpaceX in Redmond, Washington, from the Falcon 9 rocket was confirmed at T+plus 15 minutes, 28 seconds.
Retention rods released from the Starlink payload stack, allowing the flat-packed satellites to fly free from the Falcon 9’s upper stage in orbit. The 52 spacecraft will unfurl solar arrays and run through automated activation steps, then use krypton-fueled ion engines to maneuver into their operational orbit.
The Falcon 9’s guidance computer aims deploy the satellites into an elliptical orbit at an inclination of 53.2 degrees to the equator. The satellites will use on-board propulsion to do the rest of the work to reach a circular orbit 335 miles (540 kilometers) above Earth.
The Starlink satellites will fly in one of five orbital “shells” at different inclinations for SpaceX’s global internet network. After reaching their operational orbit, the satellites will enter commercial service and begin beaming broadband signals to consumers, who can purchase Starlink service and connect to the network with a SpaceX-supplied ground terminal.
ROCKET: Falcon 9 (B1073.4)
PAYLOAD: 52 Starlink satellites (Starlink 4-35)
LAUNCH SITE: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
LAUNCH DATE: Sept. 24, 2022
LAUNCH TIME: 7:32:10 p.m. EDT (2332:10 GMT) or 8:51 p.m. EDT (0051 GMT)
WEATHER FORECAST: 80% chance of acceptable weather; Low risk of upper level winds; Low risk of unfavorable conditions for booster recovery
BOOSTER RECOVERY: “A Shortfall Of Gravitas” drone ship east of Charleston, South Carolina
LAUNCH AZIMUTH: Northeast
TARGET ORBIT: 144 miles by 209 miles (232 kilometers by 337 kilometers), 53.2 degrees inclination
LAUNCH TIMELINE:
- T+00:00: Liftoff
- T+01:12: Maximum aerodynamic pressure (Max-Q)
- T+02:26: First stage main engine cutoff (MECO)
- T+02:30: Stage separation
- T+02:36: Second stage engine ignition
- T+02:41: Fairing jettison
- T+06:44: First stage entry burn ignition (three engines)
- T+07:05: First stage entry burn cutoff
- T+08:30: First stage landing burn ignition (one engine)
- T+08:47: Second stage engine cutoff (SECO 1)
- T+08:52: First stage landing
- T+15:28: Starlink satellite separation
MISSION STATS:
- 177th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010
- 185th launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006
- 4th launch of Falcon 9 booster B1073
- 152nd Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast
- 98th Falcon 9 launch from pad 40
- 153rd launch overall from pad 40
- 119th flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster
- 62nd dedicated Falcon 9 launch with Starlink satellites
- 43rd Falcon 9 launch of 2022
- 43rd launch by SpaceX in 2022
- 41st orbital launch attempt based out of Cape Canaveral in 2022
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