SpaceX launched the Dragon spacecraft from Florida on a two-orbit test flight Wednesday, December 8 and the company brought the auto- mated capsule back to Earth less than three-and-a-half hours later.
A video of the Falcon 9 liftoff can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi9ljTW3GEQ
Liftoff photos from pad cameras can be viewed at:
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/remotes/
SpaceFlightNow.com’s Photo Gallery of the launch can be viwed at:
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/press/
Photos of the Dragon parachute landing in the Pacific can be viewed at: http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/002/splashdown/
During the flight four cubesats were deployed from the “trunk”
section of the Dragon spacecraft. At press time the function of two of the cubesats have been identified.
The University of Southern California’s (USC) CAERUS cubesat was deployed SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. CAERUS is part of the “MAYFLOWER”
Next Generation Technology CubeSat that is a joint effort with Northrop Grumman NOVAWORKS group. CAERUS is licensed by the FCC in the Experimental Service. It also has an amateur callsign and a downlink in the 70cm band:
Call Sign: KJ6FIX
Downlink Frequency: 437.600 MHz (not coordinated by IARU) Beacon Output Power: 900mW Modulation Type: AFSK, 1200 baud
TLE: Updated on website, right after launch.
The CAERUS website is at: http://tinyurl.com/37w8map. The beacon data can also be translated with the jar applet provided on this website.
The second cubesat identifed aboard the Falcon X launch was the US Army SMDC-ONE nanosatellite mission which is a store and for- ward satellite. The primary objective of the first flight wass to receive data from a ground transmitter and relay that data to a ground station. The technology is planned to be expanded to build a number of identical satellites and deploy them together into Low Earth Orbit to simulate enhanced tactical communications capability.
[ANS thanks Omair A. Rahman at the University of Southern California, SpaceDaily.com, and SpaceFlightNow.com for the above information]