Kennedy Countdown for Dec. 10, 2021

NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, or LCRD, launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Dec. 7, at 5:19 a.m. Eastern Time, as part of the Department of Defense’s Space Test Program 3 mission. LCRD, along with another NASA payload, the Ultraviolet Spectro-Coronagraph Pathfinder, were hosted on the Space Test Program Satellite-6 spacecraft. LCRD will be NASA’s first end-to-end laser relay system and will provide significant benefits for missions, including bandwidth increases of 10 to 100 times more than radio systems.

Just two days later, NASA’s Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A during the early morning hours on Dec. 9. IXPE is the agency’s first satellite dedicated to measuring the polarization of X-rays from a variety of cosmic sources, such as black holes and neutron stars. IXPE’s launch was managed by NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy.

Видео Kennedy Countdown for Dec. 10, 2021 канала NASA's Kennedy Space Center