A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Monday launched Turkey’s first domestically built communications satellite, a powerful relay station designed to carry secure military traffic within Turkish borders while providing expanded commercial services in India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
“We have just launched our domestic communications satellite Türksat 6A into space,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğa said on social media. “We have witnessed another source of pride for our country and our nation. More than 81 percent of the subsystems, satellite ground stations and software of the 6A project, which is of great importance for our country’s future in space, have been produced by Turkey with national resources.”
Abdulkadir Uraloglu, Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, said Turkey joins an exclusive club of just 11 nations capable of building high-tech communications satellites. In a pre-launch social media post, he wrote in Turkish: “Türksat 6A will be the symbol of our independence in space and our unity on Earth and in the sky.”
Liftoff from Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station occurred at 7:30 p.m. EDT, just over two hours late because of threatening weather. The first stage, making its 15th flight, boosted the rocket out of the lower atmosphere and then flew to a successful landing on a SpaceX barge parked several hundred miles east in the Atlantic Ocean.
The second stage completed two firings of its single engine, releasing the Türksat 6A satellite into a highly elliptical “transfer” orbit 35 minutes after liftoff.
Thrusters aboard the satellite will be used over the next few days to circle the orbit 22,300 miles above the equator at 42 degrees east longitude. At this altitude, satellites take 24 hours to complete an orbit and appear stationary in the sky, allowing the use of terrestrial antennas fixed to the ground.
Türksat 6A, operated by Türksat A.Ș., is equipped with 16 Ku-band transponders, along with four kept in reserve. It is also equipped with two active X-band transponders and a spare. These three are reserved for Turkish domestic military use, while the Ku-band transponders will support commercial services.
Using previous satellites acquired abroad, “we cover Europe, the Middle East, the Turkish nations, parts of East Asia and a significant part of Africa, mainly North Africa,” Uraloglu said in a press release.
“Turksat 6A will increase satellite coverage as it will cover India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, increasing our coverage from approximately 3.5 billion people to around five billion.”
The satellite has a projected useful life of 15 years.
As for SpaceX, the launch marked the company’s 68th Falcon 9 launch so far this year and 353rd overall. The California rocket builder expects to launch more than 140 Falcon family rockets this year, a pace unmatched in the commercial launch industry.
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