A SpaceX booster attempting to land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Kennedy. Photo courtesy SpaceX
For the second straight day, Hawthorne-based SpaceX scrubbed a planned launch Thursday of a Falcon 9 rocket that was expected to deliver a communications satellite into orbit, with crews then expected to try again to recover the rocket on a floating barge.
Tmission was scrubbed just 101 seconds before launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. There was no immediate word on when the mission will be rescheduled.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is expected to eventually carry a communications satellite known as SES-9 into orbit.
Once the rocket is launched, the company will make another effort to guide the rocket back to a barge — known comically as “Of Course I Still Love You.” Even SpaceX officials, however, don’t expect a successful landing.
“Given this mission’s unique GTO (Geostationary Transfer Orbit) profile, a successful landing is not expected,” according to the company.
The company has failed three times previously to successfully land the rocket on a barge.
SpaceX made history in December when it managed to return a rocket to Earth and set it down upright on land. That Dec. 21 launch, also from Cape Canaveral, delivered 11 ORBCOMM communications satellites into orbit. After delivering the vehicle carrying the satellites into orbit, the rocket was maneuvered back to Earth, and it successfully landed on a pad back at Cape Canaveral.
The history-making landing was a major cost-saving step forward for space operations, proving that highly expensive rockets can be recovered and reused instead of merely being lost into the ocean.
According to SpaceX, the SES-9 satellite will provide broadcast and communications capabilities across Northeast Asia, South Asia, Indonesia, India and the Philippines.
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