SpaceX's mission went off as scheduled but the United Launch Alliance flight scheduled for two hours later was scrubbed and delayed by at least 24 hours.
If both launches went off in the doubleheader, the yearly record of 93 from Florida will be tied. The other Space Coast site is the Kennedy Space Center. The skies in the area were clear with the full moon in the west, Florida Today reported.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 with 29 Starlink satellites at 8:31 p.m. EST with a window originally 6:09 p.m. from Launch Complex 40. About eight minutes later, the fifth flight for the first-stage booster, including a Crew-11 flight and one Starlink mission, landed on the drone ship Just Read the Instructions on the Atlantic Ocean.
Less than two hours later, rival ULA planned to launch no earlier than 10:24 p.m. an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Complex 41 for the second in Viasat's satellite fleet.
But the countdown clock stopped at 4 minutes to troubleshoot an issue with the launch window ending at 11:08 p.m.
"Engineers at Cape Canaveral and ULA's design center in Denver are working together to develop options to potentially solve this issue for a launch tonight," ULA posted.
Then, the company posted at 10:51: "ULA Launch Director James Whelan has announced that we will not continue with countdown operations today. Launch Conductor Ed Kitta has started leading his team through activities to safe the Atlas V rocket and Space Launch Complex-41 facilities following this scrub declaration. Another launch attempt will be possible in 24 hours."
The rocket, which weighs 6 tons, includes five boosters, will launch the payload in an elliptical geosynchronous transfer orbit.
"The launch team has received the 'go' to begin filling the Centaur upper stage with the super-cold liquid hydrogen fuel following chilldown of the system. The Centaur holds about 12,300 gallons of the cryogenic propellant," ULA posted about 1 1/2 hours before the scheduled launch.
ULA is a joint venture with Lockheed Martin Space and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. The company's liftoff will be available on YouTube.
By Sunday, the two space complexes in central Florida are hoping to have launched five missions in seven days by three companies.
The week began early Sunday with SpaceX's launch of 18 ride-share satellites. At 1:09 a.m., Falcon 9 was launched with one satellite for South Korea's Agency for Defense Development and 17 other companies into low-Earth orbit. The launch was from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 40. The other customers were Exolaunch, Fergani, Tomorrow Companies, Starcloud and Vast.
The next SpaceX mission is scheduled for Saturday, not earlier than 3:30 a.m., for 29 Starlink satellites from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A.
Then Sunday afternoon, Blue Origin hopes to launch the New Glenn rocket for two satellites to orbit Mars. The launch window opens at 2:51 p.m. from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral. Earlier this week, the launch was scheduled for Friday afternoon.
The mission is in conjunction with NASA after its first one on Jan. 16.
The two satellites, named Blue and Gold, will travel roughly 11 months to Mars, where they will then perform about an 11-month science mission and then orbit the Red Planet. The New Glenn rocket will also feature a landing attempt on its barge in the Atlantic Ocean, which has been delayed three times since October 2024.
In California, SpaceX also has scheduled a launch of 28 satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base's 4E at 12:56 p.m. PST on Thursday. It originally was scheduled for Wednesday night.
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Rocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com
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