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SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The launch took place at 1:22 a.m. EDT on Thursday. The Falcon 9 rocket carried Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13G geostationary communications satellite.

The Falcon 9’s first stage booster landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The rocket was rolled to pad 40 on Wednesday, and it was raised vertical on the pad on Wednesday afternoon.

The weather forecast for the launch was favorable, with a 90% probability of acceptable weather conditions. The Hotbird 13G satellite, weighing around 10,000 pounds, was built by Airbus. It will broadcast hundreds of television and radio channels across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Hotbird 13G is the twin satellite of Hotbird 13F, which was launched by SpaceX on a previous mission. Both satellites were built on Airbus’s new Eurostar Neo spacecraft design, which includes upgrades in propulsion, thermal control, and electrical systems.

During the countdown, the Falcon 9 rocket was filled with kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants. The nine Merlin 1D engines on the first stage booster were ignited, and the rocket was released for its climb into space. The engines produced 1.7 million pounds of thrust for about two-and-a-half minutes.

After the first stage booster shut down and separated from the upper stage, it performed a series of maneuvers to land on the drone ship. This marked the seventh flight to space for this particular booster.

The upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket fired its engine two times to inject the Hotbird 13G satellite into an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit. The satellite separated from the rocket about 36 minutes into the mission.

Hotbird 13G will now undergo several months of orbit-raising maneuvers using plasma thrusters to reach a circular geostationary orbit. Once operational, it will provide television programming to Eutelsat customers for a mission duration of 15 years.

Eutelsat plans to replace its aging Hotbird satellites with only two new satellites, thanks to advancements in satellite communications technology. The Hotbird 13G mission was SpaceX’s 51st launch of 2022 and the second in a series of three Falcon 9 flights for Eutelsat this year.

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