VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. \u2014 An Earth-observation satellite for Taiwan\u2019s National Space Organization was launched into orbit from California on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Formosat-5 satellite lifted off from coastal Vandenberg Air Force Base at 11:51 a.m. atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which successfully landed its first stage on a drone ship floating in the Pacific Ocean as the second stage continued on and deployed the satellite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moments before the first-stage touchdown, the video link to the vessel froze, then reappeared and showed the rocket standing. Cheers erupted in the SpaceX control room in the Los Angeles suburb Hawthorne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the 15th successful landing of a Falcon 9,\u201d said Lauren Lyons, the SpaceX webcast launch commentator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Formosat-5 is the first satellite to be fully designed by Taiwan\u2019s space agency and is intended to advance the nation\u2019s space technology and scientific research while providing global imagery with a wide array of uses ranging from natural resource studies to disaster management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Planned to operate for five years in low-Earth orbit, about 446 miles high, its main instrument is a sensor that can produce high-resolution black-and-white and color images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A predecessor satellite, Formosat-2, produced more than 2.5 million images over 12 years of operation before it wore out and was decommissioned a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Formosat-5 also carries a secondary payload, an ionospheric probe for scientific research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The landing of the Falcon 9 first stage aboard the drone ship Just Read the Instructions was the latest in a string of successful recoveries at sea or on shore by SpaceX, which sees reusability of major rocket components as key to driving down launch costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This past March, SpaceX reused a Falcon 9 first stage for the first time in a satellite launch from Florida and again successfully landed it. That first stage originally flew on a space station supply mission in April 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Formosat-5 is the first satellite to be fully designed by Taiwan\u2019s space agency and is intended to advance the nation\u2019s space technology and scientific research while providing global imagery with a wide array of uses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":68934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":39,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,106,109,29,15,32,39],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1328],"class_list":["post-22286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c2-comms","category-daily-brief","category-geoint-newsletters","category-home","category-intel-geoint","category-newsletters","category-satellites"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"US7RB7MVBNALVLH2BMHDB4OAUA","arc_canonical_url":"\/c2-comms\/satellites\/2017\/08\/25\/satellite-for-taiwan-launched-from-california\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n