Stay tuned, SiriusXM radio listeners, your program is about to get a signal boost.
SpaceX is poised to launch the SXM-9 satellite Thursday morning (Dec. 5), for SiriusXM satellite radio. The payload is the tenth spacecraft launched for SiriusXM, and the third of the company’s satellites to ride a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to orbit. A 90-minute launch window for the SXM-9 mission opens at 11:10 a.m. ET (1610 GMT), lifting off from Launch Complex-39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), in Florida.
A livestream of this morning’s launch will begin about five minutes before the opening of the launch window, and can be watched on SpaceX’s website and X account.
Falcon 9’s first stage booster is expected to return several miles off Florida’s Space Coast, landing on SpaceX’s Just Read the Instructions drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. This will be the 19th flight for this particular booster, shortening the gap between it and SpaceX’s most flown booster, which currently holds the record at 24 flights.
This booster’s previous flights include 10 Starlink launches, as well as the CRS-26 cargo mission to the ISS, OneWeb Launch 16, Instelsat IS-40e, O3B mPOWER, Ovzon 3, Eutelsat 36D, Turksat 6A and Maxar 2, according to SpaceX.
After separating from its booster, Falcon 9’s upper stage will carry the satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit, where it will release from the rocket and fly under its own power to its final orbital position.
SXM-9 was designed and manufactured by Maxar Technologies, and based on the company’s SSL-1300 satellite bus. The last SiriusXM satellite mission occurred in 2021, launching SXM-8. That satellite, and its predecessor SXM-7, which launched the previous year in 2020, were both meant to replace a pair of aging Sirius satellites, XM-3 and XM-4.
SXM-7, however, was declared lost in orbit about a month after launching, prolonging the expected use for the aging satellites, which both launched in 2005.
Though the satellite radio company’s service to its customers was unaffected by the loss of SXM-7, and XM-3 and XM-4 have continued to operate nominally, the addition of SXM-9 stands to add some robustness to the high-powered radio satellite network.
Weather for this morning’s Falcon 9 mission is currently polled “go” for launch, though backup opportunities are available. Should liftoff of today’s Falcon 9 be scrubbed, SpaceX has indicated another window opens Friday, Dec. 6, at the same time of 11:10 a.m. ET (1610 GMT).
