SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket stands vertical on pad 39A in NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Charge: Spaceflight NowSpaceX scrubbed the planned launch from the Kennedy Space Center of a Falcon 9 rocket Friday with the company 57 Starlink Internet satellites and a set of commercial surveillance satellites. A target launch date was not immediately confirmed by officials.
Launch teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida were counting down to liftoff of a 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket in 4:18 p.m. EDT (2018 GMT) Friday from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, but officials said that the launch would be postponed a few hours before the scheduled liftoff time.
At a tweet, SpaceX stated that it was”standing down from today’s Starlink mission.” The business stated its”team needed additional time for pre-launch checkouts, however, Falcon 9 and the tanks are healthy.”
SpaceX said it will announce a new target launch date after supported by the U.S. Space Force’s Eastern Range, which offers launch support for all space missions shooting off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the Kennedy Space Center.
The schedule slide sets the stage for two Falcon 9 launches from pads at Cape Canaveral at the forthcoming days.
SpaceX is preparing to establish a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 40 in Cape Canaveral on Tuesday in 3:55 p.m. EDT (1955 GMT) with the U.S. military’s next GPS navigation satellite.
At a conference call with reporters Friday a SpaceX official stated that the company was still evaluating when the Falcon 9 rocket with the Starlink broadband BlackSky and tanks Earth-imaging payloads may be prepared to fly.
An upgraded airspace warning note Friday posted to a Federal Aviation Administration website indicated Sunday, SpaceX may try again to launch the Starlink/BlackSky rideshare mission.
If the Starlink launch is ready to go in a few days, then SpaceX might elect to go with that mission before the GPS launch Tuesday. The note to pilots published Friday suggests SpaceX intends to do just that.
In case of a further delay, supervisors are expected to prioritize the GPS launch Tuesday because the mission is to get the U.S. Space Force, a key customer for SpaceX. The issue takes more than a few days to resolve, although spaceX did not disclose the reason for the launch delay Friday, the Starlink launching may be pushed back until after the GPS launch.
Lee Rosen, SpaceX’s vice president of customer operations and integration, said Friday that two launches could be performed by SpaceX from pads at Cape Canaveral in relatively short order. He explained after a review of data from the previous mission, he said takes out of a siphoned to a day to complete SpaceX could proceed with the other Falcon 9 launch.
Launch companies typically examine flight data from all launches to look for calls or some other unusual behaviour that may impact future missions.
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