On Monday, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched Turkey’s first domestically-built communications satellite, a powerful relay station designed to ensure secure military traffic within Turkey’s borders while providing expanded commercial services in India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.
“We have just launched our domestic communication 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 in the 6A project, which is of great importance for the future of our country in space, have been produced by Turkey with national resources.”
Abdulkadir Ularoglu, Turkey’s Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, said Turkey would join an exclusive club of only 11 countries capable of building high-tech communications satellites. “Türksat 6A will be the symbol of our independence in space and our unity on Earth and in the sky,” he wrote in Turkish in a social media post ahead of the launch.
The liftoff from Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station took place at 7:30 pm EDT, but was delayed a little over two hours due to bad weather. The first stage completed its 15th flight, propelling the rocket out of the lower atmosphere and successfully landing on a SpaceX ship stationed a few hundred miles east in the Atlantic Ocean.
The second stage completed two burns of its single engine, releasing the Turksat 6A satellite into a highly elliptical “transfer” 35 minutes after liftoff.
The satellite’s onboard engines will be used in the coming days to orbit the satellite 22,300 miles above the equator at 42 degrees east longitude. At this altitude, the satellite will take 24 hours to orbit and will appear stationary in the sky, allowing the use of fixed ground antennas.
Operated by Türksat A.S., Türksat 6A is equipped with 16 Ku-band transponders and four spares. It is also equipped with two active X-band transponders and a spare transponder. These three are reserved for domestic use by the Turkish military use while the Ku-band transponders support commercial services.
With satellites previously purchased abroad, “we cover Europe, the Middle East, the Turkic nations, parts of East Asia and a significant portion of Africa, mostly North Africa,” Ularoglu said in a press release.
“Turksat 6A will increase satellite coverage, as it will cover India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, increasing our coverage of approximately 3.5 billion people to around five billion.”
The satellite has a planned lifespan of 15 years.
For SpaceX, this marks the company’s 68th Falcon 9 launch this year and 353rd overall. The California rocket manufacturer plans to launch more than 140 Falcon family rockets this year, a pace unmatched in the commercial launch industry.