SpaceX Mystery Mission: South Korean Project Baffles Public

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to launch on a mysterious project with South Korea this year and people are baffled as to why the space mission's record is being kept under wraps.

According to a report, SpaceX has quietly announced that its Falcon 9 rocket will be handling the launch of SoKor’s military communications satellite sometime November 2019 at the space agency’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station LC-40 launch pad. The contract is said to be part of the Lockheed Martin to Airbus Defense and Space 2016 project.

The satellite, called Anasis II (formerly KMilSatCom 1), was constructed by Airbus and approximately weighs 3,500 to 6,000 kilograms. The SpaceX Falcon 9 will launch the Anasis II to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The satellite will then use its own propulsion engine to orbit.

Although nothing seems out of the ordinary for this mission, what’s interesting to note is that it is not recorded in the company's public launch manifests. SpaceX executives have expressed that the company expects to finish 18-21 space missions this year excluding those involving Starlink. SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell stressed that SpaceX can exceed or at the very least come close to last year’s 21 launch missions.

Based on public manifest put together by SpaceX fans, there are nine other missions set that doesn’t involve Starlink and even the South Korean mission. So why keep it a secret?

The 18-21 target actually came about two months before Crew Dragon’s disastrous Demo 2 testing so perhaps this event had something to do with all the secrecy. At the rate things are going via SpaceX’ public manifest, the company still needs three to six missions to achieve its target.

The question now is whether Elon Musk’s company actually has enough launch-ready commercial clients for the company to achieve its goals although it is set to complete a total of eight launches for the first half of 2019.

For the past two to three years, the company has consistently maintained this first half achievement so it does seem possible that the same can be achieved this year. Should the company include Starlink missions, SpaceX could easily complete a total of 20 to 27 missions.