This will be the 5th try to get Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation in orbit. What is unusual about this launch is it is a Polar Orbit, I’ve seen two flight paths in trying to get info on this launch. One was a flight path that looked to be about 10 miles off the east coast of Florida, I found a video that showed the path going over the state and Lake Okeechobee.
SpaceX will now launch an Earth-observation satellite for Italy today (yes, you can watch it live)
SpaceX has delayed its launch of the Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 satellite for Italy to no earlier than Monday (Jan. 31), at 6:11 p.m. EST (2311 GMT). The launch has now been delayed for four consecutive days, the first three for bad weather and the fourth because a ship wandered into the no-go zone downrange of Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX is now expected to launch an Italian Earth-observation satellite no earlier than today (Jan. 31), two days later than planned due to bad weather, and you'll be able to watch it live here when it lifts off.
A two-stage SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 (CSG-2) satellite is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:11 p.m. EST (2311 GMT) on Saturday. SpaceX initially aimed to launch the mission Thursday, but postponed it for 24 hours less than hour before liftoff. A launch attempt on Friday was prevented by a thick cloud layer and weather continued to thwart the launch on Saturday, the company said. On Sunday, a ship wandered into the offshore hazard area for the launch, prompting another delay.
Another fact I found was this has only been done once before in 1969. SpaceX launches first polar orbit mission from Florida in decades
After skirting South Florida, the Falcon 9 rocket flew over Cuba and Central America, then soared over the Pacific Ocean west of South America. The bend in the rocket’s track a few minutes after launch ensured the instantaneous impact point — where debris might fall of the launcher failed — did not cross over Florida after departing Cape Canaveral.
By the time the rocket reached Cuba, it was flying too high to be a safety concern, according to officials from the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Space Wing and the Federal Aviation Administration, which are charged with ensuring public safety during rocket launches from Cape Canaveral.
snip
It turned out SpaceX’s ability to return first stage boosters to controlled landings — rather than having them plummet unguided back to Earth downrange — and the Falcon 9’s use of autonomous flight safety system made the polar launch trajectory from Cape Canaveral feasible.
“What we came up with after we analyzed is SpaceX should be able to do it because of two things,” said Wayne Monteith, associate administrator of the FAA’s office of commercial space transportation. “No. 1, booster flyback, and No. 2, even more important, is autonomous flight safety because going south, the way the architecture of the command destruct systems are set up terrestrially, you’d be looking right up the plume, and you get signal attenuation, and you may not be able to … send command destruct.
this flight is set to go at 6:11 pm et.
yesterday’s launch was delayed by Cruise ship enters launch hazard area, forcing SpaceX to scrub mission a fourth time
A cruise ship veered into the exclusion zone along a Falcon 9 rocket's flightpath Sunday evening, forcing SpaceX to stand down from the mission yet again and prepare for a 24-hour turnaround.
Launch engineers, counting down to a 6:11 p.m. EST liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, waited as long as possible for the Coast Guard to resolve the situation but ultimately ran out of time to meet the instantaneous window's deadline. It marked the fourth delay for the mission that was previously scrubbed due to inclement weather around Launch Complex 40.
Teams are now targeting 6:11 p.m. EST Monday, Jan. 31, for the fifth attempt at launching an Italian Space Agency Earth observation satellite. If it cannot fly on time, SpaceX will turn its attention to a Feb. 2 national defense payload at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California before re-focusing on the Cape.
The first 3 attempts the weather made them scrub the mission.
I sure wished I was down there to see this. Nasa is lighting off a bottle rocket for South Florida!
wikipedia info on Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation
COSMO-SkyMed (COnstellation of small Satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) is an Earth-observation satellite space-based radar system funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and Ministry of Defence and conducted by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), intended for both military and civilian use.[3] The prime contractor for the spacecraft was Alenia Spazio. COSMO SkyMed is a constellation of four dual use Intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISR) Earth observation satellites with a synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) as main payload, the result of the intuition of Giorgio Perrotta in the early nineties. The synthetic-aperture radar was developed starting in the late nineties with the SAR 2000 program funded by ASI.
The space segment of the system includes four identical medium-sized 1,700 kg (3,700 lb) satellites called COSMO-SkyMed (or COSMO) 1, 2, 3, 4, equipped with synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) sensors with global coverage of the planet.[4] Observations of an area of interest can be repeated several times a day in all-weather conditions. The imagery is applied to defense and security assurance in Italy and other countries, seismic hazard analysis, environmental disaster monitoring, and agricultural mapping.[5]
Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation this link has even more info
Italy's second generation COSMO- SkyMed constellation of two satellites, also referred to as CSG (COSMO-SkyMed Seconda Generazione), aims at improving the quality of the imaging service, providing the end users with enhanced capabilities in terms of higher number of images and image quality (larger swath and finer spatial and radiometric resolution) with respect to the current COSMO-SkyMed constellation, referred to as CSK. - The CSG requirements call for additional capabilities (e.g. full polarimetric SAR acquisition modes) granting a greater operative versatility, both in terms of programming capability and the effective sharing of the system resources among different typologies of users requesting images of different characteristics.
The CSG mission has been conceived, according to the requirements stated by ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) with funding of the Italian Ministry of Defense (I-MoD), at the twofold need (civil/defense) of ensuring operational continuity to the currently operating "first generation" CSK constellation, while achieving a generational step ahead in terms of functionality and performances. In order to ensure operational continuity, the new CSG satellites will be ready for operations in time to replace the CSK satellites whenever they are being progressively phased out at the end of their lifetime, expected to start from 2015 onwards. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)
With the aim to guarantee the operational continuity of the current COSMO-SkyMed constellation and to consolidate the excellent scientific and technological know-how up to now reached by Italy in the SAR field, ASI awarded TAS-I (Thales Alenia Space Italia) in 2011 the phase-B contract for the CSG program.