Maxar-3 WorldView Legion 5 & 6 (Falcon 9)
4 February 2025
Launch Complex 39A
Kennedy Space Center

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Maxar 3 WorldView 5 & 6 mission to orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center at 6:13 p.m. on 4 February 2025. After stage separation, Falcon 9's first stage landed on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

This will be the fourth flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched GOES-U and two Starlink missions.
Incredibly thick fog meant the only part of the launch and landing seen from my location was the entry burn of the Falcon 9's first stage on its way to a landing at Landing Zone-1.
EXCERPTS FROM A MAXAR MEDIA RELEASE
Artist rendering of the Maxar WorldView Legion satellite constellation in orbit. IMAGE CREDIT: MAXAR

Serving customers with the highest quality satellite imagery

The launch of these two satellites will complete the first block of Maxar’s next-generation WorldView Legion satellites. It will also be a major milestone in Maxar’s efforts to significantly increase its very high-resolution 30 cm-class satellite imagery collection capacity, bolstering its ability to support customer needs for near real-time insights.

These satellites will enter MIO [mid-inclination orbit] at the opposing 45-degree angle from the WorldView Legion satellites in Launch 2. With four satellites in MIO and six satellites in sun-synchronous orbit, Maxar will be able to revisit some locations on Earth up to 15 times per day and triple our 30 cm-class collection capacity.

With 3.6 million sq km of 30 cm-class collection capacity per day, Maxar will continue to lead the industry by offering customers the highest image quality and geometric accuracy available on the commercial market. In fact, no other provider will have this amount of 30 cm-class capacity available.

Maxar will also be applying its proprietary high-definition (HD) processing technique to WorldView Legion’s 30 cm- class imagery, resulting in more 15 cm HD imagery as a result.

When all six WorldView Legions are operational on orbit, Maxar will offer customers:

  • More capacity for mission planning.
  • Increased views of key locations for site monitoring and support for emergency response, maritime surveillance and civil government use cases.
  • Fresher basemaps and 3D maps for commercial mapmaking and telecommunications planning.
  • Enhanced insights extracted on the global scale for informed decision-making.

The Maxar constellation will now make near-real time services become a reality through more collections and faster processing of data, providing even more value to customers.
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