{"id":113263,"date":"2025-08-27T07:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T07:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/113263\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T07:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T07:54:09","slug":"spacex-rocket-launch-delivers-satellites-for-luxembourg-other-customers-local-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/113263\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Rocket Launch Delivers Satellites for Luxembourg, Other Customers | Local News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A small country in Western Europe has a new Earth-observation satellite now in orbit following a successful launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vandenberg.spaceforce.mil\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Vandenberg Space Force Base<\/a> on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spacex.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SpaceX<\/a> rocket blasted off at 11:53 a.m. from Space Launch Complex-4 on South Base.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>About eight minutes later the rocket\u2019s first-stage booster returned to land at Vandenberg, completing its 27th mission.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The rocket\u2019s primary payload involved the National Advanced Optical System, or NAOS, for <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Luxembourg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Luxembourg<\/a>, which shares borders with Belgium, Germany and France.<\/p>\n<p>Built by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ohb-italia.it\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">OHB Italia <\/a>for Luxembourg Defense, NAOS is a very-high resolution optical satellite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe satellite will provide high-definition images allowing the Luxembourg government to capture key data for public administration, land monitoring and more,\u201d said Amanda Yares, a SpaceX ground systems engineer and launch commentator.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Other uses for NAOS include military operations, monitoring disarmament treaties, observing troop movements, studying climate change, natural disaster management, humanitarian aid and climate change.<\/p>\n<p>Images will be provided to various organizations including the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NAOS, which is designed to operate for seven years, will circle Earth once every 94 minutes or 15 times a day, and provide approximately 100 images daily.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"780\" height=\"519\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/082625-SpaceX-NAOS1-contributed.jpg\" alt=\"A SpaceX rocket carrying an Earth-observation satellite for Luxembourg plus other payloads for different customers climbs away from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Tuesday.\" class=\"wp-image-744444\"  \/>A SpaceX rocket carrying an Earth-observation satellite for Luxembourg plus other payloads for different customers climbs away from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Tuesday.  Credit: SpaceX photo<\/p>\n<p>But NAOS wasn\u2019t the only payload aboard the mission, sharing the ride with seven other payloads.<\/p>\n<p>They included <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dhruvaspace.com\/leap-1-mission\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dhruva Space\u2019s LEAP-1<\/a>; Planet Lab\u2019s Pelican-3 and Pelican-4; and four payloads manifested by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.exolaunch.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Exolaunch<\/a>: Capella\u2019s Acadia-6 and Pixxel\u2019s FFLY-1, FFLY-2, and FFLY-3.<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco-based Planet said the firm had already made contact with Pelican-3 and Pelican-4 high-resolution, Earth-observation satellites to begin prepping them for operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter making contact with these satellites, we\u2019re celebrating another big milestone for Pelican,\u201d Planet representatives said on social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur Pelicans combine high-resolution, rapid tasking, and onboard AI capabilities (via\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nvidia\" rel=\"nofollow\">@nvidia<\/a>\u2018s Jetson platform) to meet customer needs in a rapidly changing world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Planet plans to expand the Pelican fleet later this year.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, SpaceX plans to launch another batch of Starlink satellites from Vandenberg as soon as Friday with the launch expected between 7:05 and 11:05 p.m. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small country in Western Europe has a new Earth-observation satellite now in orbit following a successful launch&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[983,79,193],"class_list":["post-113263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-local-news","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}