The company also flies the Falcon 9 out of Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base, has plans for a commercial launch site in Texas and is currently in the process of converting the former Saturn V and Space Shuttle launch pad at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A for its Falcon Heavy vehicle. Ahead of Sunday’s launch, the Falcon 9 was powered on around 12:50 local time (17:50 UTC). Three hours before SpaceX began to load fuel into the rocket’s tanks, beginning with its RP-1 propellant. The oxidiser, liquid oxygen, began to be loaded at the two hour, thirty-five minute mark, with initial tanking of both propellant and oxidiser completed by the time the countdown reached an hour and a half before launch. As the cryogenic liquid oxygen boiled off it was vented from the rocket and the tanks continued to be topped up throughout the countdown. The terminal countdown began ten minutes before launch, with an automated sequence beginning as control of operations was transferred to the rocket’s onboard computers. Retraction of the Strongback structure, used to erect and support the Falcon at its pad, began around four minutes and forty seconds ahead of liftoff, with arming of the rocket’s flight termination system beginning three minutes and fifteen seconds ahead of time. At the two minute mark in the countdown both the SpaceX launch director and the US Air Force Range Control Officer (RCO) for the Eastern Range gave their final approval for the launch to take place. In the final minute of the countdown the rocket conducted a series of final prelaunch checks under the command of its flight computers. The pad water deluge, or “Niagara”, system was activated and the vehicle’s propellant tanks were pressurised. Three seconds before launch the first stage’s nine Merlin-1D engines ignited and begin to ramp up thrust. Arranged in an octagonal “OctaWeb” configuration with eight outboard engines distributed around a central or inboard motor, the Merlins provided the thrust to propel the Falcon from its pad and on the first leg of its journey into orbit. Around fifteen to twenty seconds after lifting off, the Falcon executed a series of manoeuvres to establish itself on course for its planned low-inclination orbit. Flying East over the Atlantic Ocean the vehicle reached a speed of Mach 1 around 73 seconds after liftoff, passing through the area of maximum dynamic pressure, or max-Q, eleven seconds later. First stage powered flight lasted two minutes and fifty six seconds, ending in Main Engine Cutoff, or MECO, when the stage approaches propellant exhaustion. Two seconds after first stage cutoff, the spent stage was jettisoned with second stage ignition occurring eight seconds after staging. Performing the first of two planned burns, the second stage burned its Merlin Vacuum engine for five minutes and 44 seconds to establish a 953 by 174 kilometre (108 by 592 miles, 94 by 515 nautical miles) parking orbit. Separation of the payload fairing from around the two satellites occurred forty five seconds into second stage flight. Following the end of the first second stage burn, the mission entered a coast phase until the stage restarts for its second burn at the 25 minute and 52 second mark in the flight. Lasting 59 seconds, this burn raised the vehicle into its deployment orbit; 408 by 63,928 kilometres (254 by 39,723 miles, 220 by 34,518 nautical miles). Afterwards the rocket reoriented itself for spacecraft separation, with ABS-3A deploying three minutes and 27 seconds after cutoff. The Eutelsat spacecraft was deployed five minutes after its companion, once the rocket again reoriented itself. Following separation, the spacecraft will take around eight months to manoeuvre into their final geostationary orbits – this long orbit-raising phase a consequence of the less powerful but more efficient electric propulsion systems they are using. Upon reaching their final orbital slots the satellites will undergo an on-orbit checkout phase, lasting a few weeks, before entering service.