Falcon Heavy | Dragonfly
SpaceX launches Falcon Heavy carrying Dragonfly from Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, United States of America on July 5, 2028. Launch Library files only the day, so the time on the clock is a placeholder. The date is still provisional and can move.
COUNTDOWN
FLIGHT PLAN
There's no launch window filed yet. Current date is a placeholder or rough estimation based on unreliable or interpreted sources.
FIELD KIT / OPTICS
Where to start if you want a telescope for the back garden.
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Celestron Travel Scope 70 mm Refractor
A 70 mm scope on a light tripod that packs into its own backpack, so it's easy to take out. It shows craters on the Moon, Jupiter's four bright moons and the shape of Saturn's rings. The tripod is the weak part, so expect to steady it.
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Beginner Dobsonians
A big mirror on a simple rocker mount, with no motors to go wrong. This is a search, not one pick. Compare 130 mm and 150 mm models before you buy.
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Beginner refractors
Lighter and quicker to set up than a Dobsonian, but weaker on faint galaxies and nebulae. Worth a look if the scope has to live in a cupboard.
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LINKS AMAZON.COM
MISSION BRIEF
Dragonfly is NASA's 4th New Frontiers program mission that will send a robotic rotorcraft to fly within the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan to sample materials and determine surface composition in different geologic settings, advancing humanity's search for the building blocks of life. The craft is a large quadcopter with double rotors with mass of about 875 kg, featuring rotors of 1.35 m in diameter. It can fly through several kilometers within an hour and will perform 1 flight per Titan day (~16 Earth days). During the planned 3.3-year mission, Dragonfly is expected to cover distance up to several hundred km. Dragonfly will use a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) to power its instruments. The planned science instrument suite is: * DragonCam: Camera Suite * DrACO: Drill for Acquisition of Complex Organics * DraMS: Mass Spectrometer * DraGNS: Gamma-ray and Neutron Spectrometer * DraGMet: Geophysics and Meteorology
SOURCE: LAUNCH LIBRARY 2 // THE SPACE DEVS
LAUNCH CORRIDOR
- Due east
- The lowest inclination a direct launch from here can reach is 28.6°. That’s this pad’s own latitude. Flying east also gets the most free speed from Earth’s rotation.
- Due south
- The polar corridor, at 90° inclination, passes over both poles. It gets no help from Earth’s spin, so the same rocket can carry less.
Drag the globe to turn it. The shading is the real terminator, and it moves.
A globe of the Earth centred on Launch Complex 39A at latitude 28.61 degrees north, longitude 80.60 degrees west. Two curved lines leave the pad. The solid gold line runs due east and marks the lowest orbital inclination a direct launch from this site can reach, 28.6 degrees, equal to the pad’s latitude of 28.6 degrees. The dashed cyan line runs due south and marks the polar corridor at 90 degrees inclination. The darkened part of the globe is the night side. The surface wind is from 256° at 9 km/h. That's the cyan arrow at the pad.
LAUNCH SITE
Launch Complex 39A
Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA, United States of America
OBSERVED 2026-11-11 11:30:00Z // OPEN-METEO (CC BY 4.0) // GENERAL CONDITIONS, NOT LAUNCH CRITERIA
Minimum direct inclination 29°. This pad is 29° north of the equator, so a direct launch can't reach an orbit inclined less than 29°. An orbit of inclination i never passes over latitudes beyond ±i. Getting to an equatorial orbit, which geostationary satellites need, takes a 29° plane change at some point in the flight. Inclinations of 29° and up are reachable straight off the pad. The ground here moves east at about 408 m/s with Earth's spin. That's 465 m/s at the equator, falling with the cosine of latitude. A launch due east keeps that head start.
DATUM WGS-84 // EQUIRECTANGULAR PROJECTION // ORBIT FIGURES DERIVED FROM THE PUBLISHED LATITUDE
Open this pad in a mapPAD CONDITIONS
SURFACE WIND @ 10 M
9km/h
Blowing from the west-south-west, bearing 256 degrees
GUSTING
21km/h
Overcast
SOURCE: OPEN-METEO CC BY 4.0
The observed figures are general weather at the coordinates of Launch Complex 39A. They aren’t the launch rules. The operator and the range write those for each mission, and they cover things this forecast doesn’t carry, like electric fields, cloud layers higher up and winds along the rocket’s path. Only the operator publishes them. Wind often stops a countdown, but no number here is a limit for this flight. Nothing here is a go or no-go call. No operator figure was published for this attempt.