SpaceX Falcon 9 to launch another set of Iridium-NEXT satellites

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base Monday, deploying the third batch of ten Iridium-NEXT communications satellites into low Earth orbit.

Liftoff from SLC-4E is scheduled for an instantaneous launch opportunity at 05:37 local time (12:37 UTC).

Coming a month after SpaceX’s last launch, which successfully deployed the US Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane into low Earth Orbit, Monday’s launch is the third of a multi-launch contract between SpaceX and Iridium Communications that will see SpaceX conduct eight missions to deploy seventy-five satellites of Iridium’s second-generation Iridium-NEXT constellation.

The first-generation constellation was developed by Iridium SSC, a company financially backed by Motorola.

The original constellation was launched between 1997 and 2002. Iridium originally planned a 77-satellite constellation – with its name coming from the chemical element with atomic number 77. However, this was scaled back to 66 satellites, operating in six planes of eleven spacecraft each.

UCJ, UNILORIN.