Orbcomm (satellite)

It contained experiments for relaying signals from the United States Coast Guard Automatic Identification System through the satellite constellation.

[9] The first (Orbcomm OG2-1) of these satellites was launched on 8 October 2012 as secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.0 flight.

[10][11] On this launch, the Falcon 9 had a failure in one of its nine first stage engines 79 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The orbit of the satellite was unable to be raised to a sustainable altitude due to contractual limitations put on SpaceX by the primary payload owner, NASA.

Following the end of the use of the first stage for the Orbcomm orbital mission, SpaceX used the booster stage — which would ordinarily be destroyed on reentering the Earth's atmosphere and impact with the ocean — for a flight test of a number of reusable launch vehicle technologies to safely reenter and execute a "soft vertical landing" on the ocean surface, where it successfully decelerated, made a successful reentry, landing burn and deployment of its landing legs.

The first stage was not recovered as the hull integrity was breached on landing or on the subsequent "tip over and body slam".

[17][20] The satellites were placed by the Falcon 9 launch vehicle "within a fraction of a degree in inclination and 5 km (3.1 mi) in altitude of the intended orbit", and by 9 January 2016, were in the middle of on-orbit testing, while executing propulsion maneuvers that had spread the 11 satellites over a 6,400 km (4,000 mi) orbital arc.

[21] The ORBCOMM OG2 satellites are being manufactured by an industry team led by Sierra Nevada Corporation and Argon ST, a Boeing subsidiary.

The agreement with SpaceX to launch 18 satellites on its Falcon 9 rockets was signed in December 2012 for a total cost of US$42.6 million.