So (ahem) while everyone focuses on the lower part of the F9, lemme fill in the details of the rest that absolutely no one will care,
not (quite) even by the boss of the company that the satellites on board come from!
The passengers today are 11 satellites of the new 2nd generation Orbcomm satellites. One of the biggest players in the Low Earth Orbit communication constellation market around the millennium, this Orbital Sciences-spun-out company managed to withstand the market collapse (mainly due to that they target more on the ship and vehicle tracking/remote asset telemetry market than voice messages). Well, their fleet dates back to the late-1990s so the company ordered 18 new satellites from Sierra Nevada Corp. (famous for their Dreamchaser) several years ago.
Originally they went to SpaceX for buying Falcon 1 flights - well the plan changed quite a lot and the 1st of them was dumped into not quite a good orbit while piggybacked on the CRS-1 Dragon back in 2012. 7 more were launched July last year after a 2 month struggle at the pad.
:tiphat:
....and the weather:
Weather Forecast for Titusville, Florida on December 21, 2015 (9 p.m.)
Cloudy. Low around 20C. Winds SSE at 15 to 25 km/h.
Time|Temps|Dew Point|Relative Humidity|Precip|Snow|Cloud cover|Pressure|Wind|Weather
9 PM|23°C|21°C|88%|0%|0%|30%|1022 hPa|16 km/h SE|
Partly Cloudy