Tenth Consecutive Launch Of Falcon 9 Goes Flawlessly

SpaceX on Monday executed another successful launch of the Falcon 9 rocket. This is the tenth consecutive successful launch of the Falcon 9.

Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL at 11:15 AM ET, lofting a constellation of six ORBCOMM OG2 satellites to orbit. This launch was the first in a series of ORBCOMM’s OG2 machine-to-machine communications satellites launching on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 vehicle. All six ORBCOMM satellites deployed on target.

ORBCOMM’s OG2 satellites will provide existing customers with significant enhancements, such as faster message delivery, larger message sizes and better coverage at higher latitudes, while dramatically increasing network capacity.

“The successful launch of the first OG2 mission is a testament to the entire OG2 team at ORBCOMM, SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Boeing, and Moog, and I’d like to thank them for their hard work and dedication,” said Marc Eisenberg, ORBCOMM’s Chief Executive Officer. “OG2 will enable our customers to send and receive more data, with greater speed, more efficiently than ever before.”

After an initial health check, the satellites will undergo extensive In-Orbit Testing (IOT) to verify that all subsystems are properly functioning. The satellites are expected to be providing full commercial M2M messaging and AIS services within the next 60 days.

(Image provided by SpaceX)

FMI: www.spacex.com, www.orbcomm.com