SpaceX scrubbed a launch attempt today from Kennedy Space Center of a classified satellite for the U.S. government, but will try again on Friday. The mission caps off a busy 2020 season for Elon Musk’s company.
Thursday’s launch window opened at 9 a.m., and the company then targeted a 9:45 a.m. liftoff to “allow some weather to pass” but the countdown was halted automatically when sensors showed a buildup of pressure in the upper stage liquid oxygen tanks. Mission managers after 11 a.m. scrubbed Thursday’s attempt and will recycle for 24-hour turnaround.
The window Friday is the same, opening at 9 a.m. with a chance for liftoff through noon. Friday’s weather forecast is 80% go.
“Last launch of 2020 coming up,” Musk tweeted Thursday morning. It would be the company’s 26th of the year.
SpaceX plans to land Falcon 9’s first stage on dry land instead of on a drone ship at sea, using Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Code-named NROL-108, the mission is for the National Reconnaissance Office, a highly secretive agency within the Defense Department that has launched five other times this year.
SpaceX became a customer for the NRO after it and United Launch Alliance were awarded multimillion-dollar contracts in August — $337 million for ULA and $316 million for SpaceX — to share the duty of launching the military’s highest-priority national security missions.
ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, will handle 60% of the launches through 2027 and SpaceX the other 40%. They beat out Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman.
Other NRO launches this year have included one from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia aboard Northrop Grumman’s Minotaur IV rocket; two from New Zealand with Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket; and two from Cape Canaveral aboard ULA’s Altas V and Delta IV Heavy rockets.
This will only be the second time SpaceX has handled an NRO mission. The first was in 2017.
This will also be the first time the agency has sent up a payload using previously flown equipment, a testament to the trust in SpaceX’s ability to recycle rocket parts.
The booster on the Falcon 9 for Thursday’s launch has flown four other times, and teams will look to recover it once more about eight minutes after liftoff.
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