CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL –  After drenching rain storms and strong bolts of lightning repeatedly pelted the Florida Space Coast throughout the day and early evening Saturday, a beefed up SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blazed a beautiful trail to orbit with a middle-of-the-night Sunday morning (July 22) blastoff of the hefty Telstar 19v telecomsat for the Americas - squeezing in between a break in the violent weather afflicting central Florida all week.

The magnificent post-midnight liftoff of the massive 7.8 ton Telstar 19 VANTAGE (or Telstar 19v) Canadian commercial telecommunications satellite atop the upgraded Falcon 9 took place right at the opening of the lengthy launch window at 1:50 a.m. EDT (0550 GMT) Sunday, July 22 from seaside Space launch Complex-40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL.

Telstar 19 VANTAGE is reportedly the largest and heaviest commercial communications satellite ever launched to geostationary orbit some 22,000 miles (35,000 km) over the equator – weighing in at 7,080 kilograms (15,600 lb).

The Telstar-owned satellite will deliver new high throughput Ku and Ka-band capacity across the Americas and Atlantic.

Propellant loading began at T- Minus 35 minutes after verification from the SpaceX Launch Director.

The liquid oxygen (LOX)/RP-1 fueled Falcon 9 first stage ignited with 1.8 million pounds of liftoff thrust powered by nine Merlin 1D engine mounted in an octoweb arrangement.

The first and second stages separated 2 minutes and 33 seconds after liftoff.

The second stage ignited for the first time at 2 minutes 24 seconds followed by payload fairing deployment at 3 minutes 40 seconds.

Just minutes later, the Falcon 9’s first stage booster made a successful touchdown on the ocean going "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship platform at sea - prepositioned some 400 miles (640 km) off shore in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Telstar 19v craft successfully separated from the Falcon 9 upper stage as planned for deployment 33 minutes after liftoff.

All the mission action was broadcast live on a SpaceX hosted webcast.

The Telstar launch put on a spectacular sky show for hordes of space enthusiasts who traveled from near and far to witness the tremendous sight - and packed area hotels.

I watched from nearby Titusville to capture a different eyewitness perspective from my normal on base  viewing locations on the Kennedy Space Center Cape Canaveral Air Force Station – as my sound activated cameras captured all the breathtaking action for Space UpClose directly at launch pad 40.

Check out my long duration steak shots (above and below) of the Falcon 9 with Telstar 19v as the rocket blazed a picturesque trail over the Max Brewer Bridge.

The newly built two stage 229-foot tall (70-meter) SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully delivered the Telstar 19 VANTAGE comsat to a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) for  Telesat, one of the world’s leading commercial satellite operators.

The Falcon 9 rocket was rolled out Saturday afternoon to pad 40 and raised vertical with Telstar 19 encapsulated inside the payload fairing and then inundated with heavy rain squalls.

This was only the second production unit of SpaceX’s significantly upgraded Block 5 version of their workhorse  Falcon 9 rocket.

The first Block 5 launched on May 11 from the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex-39A with the Bangabandhu-1 comsat for the nation of Bangladesh.

Telstar 19 VANTAGE is a Canadian owned commercial communications satellite,  designed as an advanced high throughput satellite (HTS) providing broadband services.

It is equipped with both Ku-band and Ka-band antennas to provide services covering  both North and South America and the Atlantic region.

The huge American-built satellite was manufactured  by SSL (formerly Space Systems/Loral) in Palo Alto, California, for Telesat, one of the world’s leading satellite operators.

Telstar 19v will operate at Telesat’s prime orbital location of 63 degrees West, the same as Telstars highly utilized 14R satellite.

It will serve customers throughout the Americas and the Atlantic. Telstar 19v has a 15 year design lifetime.   It is expected to enter service this summer after completing orbit raising boosts and in-orbit testing and checkout of spacecraft systems.

In fact this is the first of two SpaceX launches planned for Telesat over a time span only about a month apart at the Cape. Telstar 18 VANTAGE is due to liftoff in the second half of August from pad 40.

“Telesat has worked closely with SSL and the Maxar family of companies for many years and we are pleased to have collaborated with them on our newest Telstar VANTAGE high throughput satellites,” said Dan Goldberg, President and CEO of Telesat, in a prelaunch statement.

“These state-of-the-art spacecraft are going to provide important competitive advantages for our customers across the Americas and Asia. It’s great news that Telstar 19 VANTAGE is now at the launch base and that Telstar 18 VANTAGE is nearly finished and in the queue to ship.”

The Block 5 Falcon 9 will be cheaper to produce and much easier to turnaround with minimal maintenance, says SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. His goal is to relaunch a recovered Block 5 a second time within 24 hours by sometime next year.
SpaceX successfully recovered this new Block 5 version of the Falcon 9 booster which replaces the older, now discontinued Block 4.
The last Block 4 launched in late June for NASA on the Dragon CRS-15 resupply mission to the ISS.
This was SpaceX’s 13th launch of the year.

The next launch is set for Vandenberg AFB, CA at 7:39 a.m. EDT,  4:39 a.m. PDT (1139 GMT) Wednesday, July 25 with 10 Iridium NEXT voice and data relay satellites.

The next SpaceX launch from the Cape is set for August 2 at 1:19 a.m. EDT (0519 GMT) with the Merah Putih communications satellite for Telkom Indonesia and also built by SSL.
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