SpaceX weathered lightning in the area until skies cleared early this evening, allowing the company to launch the Turksat-6A mission aboard a Falcon 9. Originally scheduled for 5:20 PM EDT, liftoff was delayed several times until 7:30 PM when the afternoon’s storms were far away enough to allow the rocket to safely ascend towards orbit.

Around 8.5 minutes after liftoff, Booster B1076 touched down safely on the company’s drone ship ‘Just Read The Instructions’ to complete its fifteenth mission, while the second stage and payload continued to Earth orbit.

Shortly after 8 PM, SpaceX confirmed a successful deployment of the payload, marking yet another successful mission for the company and for Falcon 9: its 351st Falcon 9 launch, its 308th booster landing, and its 282nd flight of a previously flown booster.

Launch Replay

Payload

The payload for this mission was a domestically produced telecommunications satellite, Türksat 6A. Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğle stated that Türksat 6A was produced with a local production rate of nearly 90 percent, a first for the Türkish nation.

In May, he said, “We produced our Türksat 6A satellite locally and nationally. While producing this, we assigned Türksat’s engineers to the construction of TÜRKSAT 3A, 4A, 4B, 5A, 5B satellites, trained them and included them in the production programs.”

It is currently traveling under its own power to a geosynchronous orbit positioned at 42° East, where it will have an expected service lifetime of at least fifteen years once it reaches its operational location and is tested and commissioned.

Türksat 6A will service Türksat’s normal customer base as well as adding four new countries with the new Türksat 6A. “Currently, with our satellites, we cover Europe, the Middle East, the Turkish Republics and a part of the Far East,” Uraloğle said. “We are already selling this service to the geographies I mentioned. There will be additional income by selling this communication service and exporting services to the new 4 countries.” he said.

Booster B1076.15

Next Launch

SpaceX is scheduled to launch another set of Starlink satellites early on Saturday morning from Space Launch Complex 40.

• Date: NET July 13, 2024
• Organization: SpaceX
• Mission: Starlink Group 10-4
• Rocket: Falcon 9
• Launch Site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
• Launch Window: 03:58 AM – 08:28 AM EDT
• Payload: Starlink Mini v2 satellites

Keep in mind that launch dates and times change often. Launch attempts can be scrubbed anytime due to weather, technical reasons, or range conditions.

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