The position of the orbit of the space station that day will decide the launch time around 1:32 am.
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The touchdown attempt at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral will be held almost 10 minutes following liftoff.
After a series of unsuccessful space mission intentions to that began in January 2015, Elon Musk’s spaceflight organization looked like it has been successful in making its rockets land where they need to be.
For reusability to pay off, SpaceX knows it must recover most of its rockets and be able to turn them around for additional flights with minimum refurbishment. On Friday at 5.40pm Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the Thaicom 8 satellite. The rocket carried the satellite about 22,000 miles above the Earth’s surface, Christian Science Monitor reported.
SpaceX will try again Friday to launch an worldwide communications satellite to a high orbit, then stick a high-speed booster landing in the Atlantic Ocean for the second time this month.
Once up, the satellite, built by aerospace manufacturer Orbital ATK for Thailand’s first satellite operator, Thaicom, will provide TV and internet services to Southeast Asia. The launch was moved forward from June. This is the preferred orbit for communication satellites.
SpaceX will try to attempt to land the first stage of the rocket on a drone ship in the Atlantic, once again.
The spectacular looking launch into mostly sunny Florida skies followed a days delay forced by a technical glitch in the second stage.
Next up for SpaceX is launch of the company’s ninth operational space station resupply mission on July 16.
Nevertheless, the most recent three rocket launches have all led to safe landings, supporting SpaceX’s claims to have successfully created a reusable rocket. Those flights will start in 2017. It successfully landed a first-stage booster on land in December. “The company now plans to re-fly the rocket that was landed at the beginning of May, but there is no timeframe for that launch”. According to The Verge, the landing failed due to a malfunction with the rocket’s leg-locking mechanism.
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SpaceX had downplayed chances the returning first-stage would nail the landing, despite a successful touchdown on May 6 by another rocket on a similarly challenging satellite-delivery mission.
