Launch

Author: Levente Buzas

Photo Credits: Alex Doknjas

After years of hard work and various unexpected delays ORCASat’s launch was finally confirmed on CRS-26, a commercial resupply mission to the ISS operated by SpaceX. On November 17, 2022 several ORCASat team members arrived to Florida watch this launch live, then scheduled for November 21, 2022. As part of the trip, the team got the opportunity to explore NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre as guest of the ISS program, and was offered an opportunity to watch the CRS-26 launch from the Banana Creek viewing area.

Poor weather unfortunately scrubbed both the November 21st and November 22nd launch attempts, so the team did not get a chance to watch the launch of ORCASat live, as they had to return to Canada prior to that. They did, however, get to watch the launch of Eutelsat-10B (also on a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket) on November 22nd, although not from Banana Creek.

The team on the bleachers at Banana Creek awaiting the CRS-26 launch.

The CRS-26 launch was postponed to 11:20 am PST on November 26th. At this time the resupply mission finally got launched, with the team watching over a video stream from Victoria. The Cargo Dragon module carrying ORCASat docked the morning of November 27th at 4:39 am PST with the ISS. ORCASat is now aboard the ISS, waiting for deployment at the end of December 2022 - and the team is busy with the final preparations for the launch and operation phase of the ORCASat mission.

You can check out the recorded streams of the CRS-26 launch and ISS docking below.