Two Greek students to be invited to watch SpaceX rocket launch

Hellas Sat 2 is still operational in orbit and orbiting the Earth twenty years after it was launched. Hellas Sat provides a unique opportunity for young people to get a rare experience and see the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket.

Two students, one from Greece and one from Cyprus, will be invited to the US this May to watch the launch of US aerospace company SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

Wikipedia Help

Falcon Heavy (lit. from English.—“Heavy” Falcon “”) – American launch vehicle (LV) of a super-heavy class with the possibility of reusing the first stage and side boosters, designed and manufactured by SpaceX, is one of the largest launch vehicles in the history of world space rocketry along with the Saturn- 5″, “H-1”, “Space Shuttle” system and “Energy”. Belongs to the Falcon family and was developed on the basis of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, using its significantly modified first stage as the central block (stage I), as well as two additional modified first stages of the Falcon 9 as side boosters (the so-called “zero stage”) .

At the time of the first launch, it was the most lifting, powerful and heaviest launch vehicle in operation, and was such until the launch of the SLS in 2022. Falcon Heavy also holds the absolute record for the number of main engines (28, including 27 simultaneously operating) among successfully flying launch vehicles. From an engineering point of view, it is of undoubted interest that if the Falcon Heavy successfully “accumulates the statistics of successful launches” – this will mean a refutation of the generally accepted among rocket specialists since the mid-1970s. point of view that it is technically impossible to achieve acceptable reliability of a “super-multi-engine” launch vehicle – and, as a result, a revolution in the technical concepts for creating heavy and especially super-heavy launch vehicles.

The first (test) launch of the Falcon Heavy was successfully completed on February 6, 2018. The first commercial launch was made on April 11, 2019. As Hellas Sat announced, as part of the anniversary, the twentieth anniversary of the company’s presence in space and the Hellas Sat 2 satellite with the flag of Greece, it was decided to hold a competition and select 2 young people who will be able to be present at the launch of the SpaceX rocket (with a communications satellite aboard Badr 8 for Arabsat).

“I asked the president of Arabsat, on the occasion of the launch of this satellite, along with other guests, to attend the launch a student from Greece and a student from Cyprus. This is a unique experience,” Hellas Sat CEO Christodoulos Protopapas said in an interview with APE-MPE radio station Agency 104.9 FM. “We promise that the next time we launch the new Hellas Sat 5, we will have more students,” promised the Managing Director of Hellas Sat.

Желающим получить опыт присутствия при запуске многоразового космического корабля необходимо – для того, чтобы иметь право участвовать в процессе отбора – быть студентами ВУЗов (Πολυτεχνικών Σχολών, Σχολών Θετικών Επιστημών, Τμημάτων Πληροφορικής και Νομικών Σχολών, με ειδικό ενδιαφέρον για το Διαστημικό Δίκαιο, όπως και να Greece and Cyprus.

The lucky draw will take place in Greece and Cyprus, and the lottery will take place on May 13, 2023, exactly twenty years after the launch of Hellas Sat 2, which also took place at Cape Canaveral on May 13, 2003.

In the US, in addition to launch day, the lucky ones “will take a tour of the Cape Canaveral facilities and get acquainted with the history of the US space programs, see the objects of the Apollo spacecraft and much more,” said the managing director of Hellas Sat. Travel and accommodation costs will be fully covered by Hellas Sat, and those who wish can fill out an online form at HERE.

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