Major Missions and Launches at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in 2023

JAKARTA – Overall, all field centers belonging to the United States Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will be busy, including the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) facility in Florida.

Next year, KSC facilities will be more crowded than other NASA facilities. The reason is, this place will welcome many new missions, such as the first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, the Artemis II program, and the launch of an Earth observation satellite.

The first mission that KSC must complete is the first launch of the Vulcan Centaur rocket belonging to the United Launch Alliance (ULA). This rocket will lift off next year carrying Astrobotic’s Pregrine Mission-1 lander.

Still within the CLPS initiative, KSC will hold a second launch with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. This rocket will land Intuitive Machines Nova-C on the South Pole of the Moon. This lander will carry a payload focused on lunar exploration.

The next important mission that KSC must carry out is the development of the Artemis II program. In this mission, the Space Launch System (SLS) will begin to be assembled and integrated in the Vehicle Assembly Building.

Furthermore, there were several launch programs, such as crew flight tests for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, launching Crew-8 and Crew-9 into orbit, and launching Axiom Mission 3 and Axiom Mission 4 to the space station.

Meanwhile, KSC will also be busy with several science missions. Next year, KSC will be the facility for the launch of the CubeSat initiative and the launch of the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) spacecraft.

Apart from that, there is still the launch of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) satellite, the Europa Clipper observation mission, as well as the launch of the Polar Radiant Energy in the Infrared Experiment (PREFIRE) and the Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE).

2023-12-30 09:30:00
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