This evening at 8:43p Pacific, BlackSky will launch our first satellite, Pathfinder-1! PF1 is going up on an Indian rocket, PSLV-35, and there will be a live stream of the launch. We have a 15-minute launch window, so if the weather doesn’t cooperate and the rocket is unable to launch within that window the launch will be scrubbed and attempted again Monday night at the same time. So far the weather looks good!
The primary payload should separate from PSLV-35 about 15 minutes after launch. Then the rocket will change orbit in space before PF1 will be released around 11:30p Pacific.
The BlackSky Twitter account has links to some interesting blog posts about PF1’s trek to India and will have updates on the status of the launch and early operations. The SatOps team has been asked to not discuss the status of the sat after launch and let all official communications happen through corporate, so the Twitter account is the best place to figure out how things are going with PF1 after launch.
LEO, here we come!
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