Falcon 9 Earns Additional Praise from NASA

NASA certifies Falcon 9 for science missions - SpaceNews.com

WASHINGTON - NASA has certified the current version of the SpaceX Falcon 9 to launch some categories of science missions, a milestone needed for the upcoming, but delayed, launch of an astronomy spacecraft. NASA disclosed the certification in its full fiscal year 2019 budget proposal, released Feb.

 From article, (the Falcon 9 is now certified to launch TESS, that launch won’t take place in March as previously planned. NASA said in a Feb. 15 release regarding the spacecraft’s arrival in Florida for launch preparations that the launch was now scheduled for no earlier than April 16. NASA had previously given a date of no earlier than March 20.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center spokesperson Claire Saravia said Feb. 15 that the launch was postponed at the request of SpaceX, who sought “additional time for hardware readiness and to meet NASA launch service mission requirements.” The spacecraft itself, she added, was in “excellent condition” at the Kennedy Space Center, where it undergo payload processing for the launch.

TESS will launch into an elliptical orbit that is in a 2:1 resonance with the moon to perform an all-sky survey to search for exoplanets around the nearest and brightest stars. That orbit is very stable and also allows for high data rates from the spacecraft.

However, it limits the days on which TESS can launch in order to phase into the proper trajectory. In an interview in January, George Ricker, principal investigator for TESS at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said there were about 40 days from March through June on which TESS could launch.)

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