Following the February 24 launch of SES 9, SpaceX is scheduled to launch its next cargo flight to the International Space Station some time in April.
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During the trip, the Falcon 9 will release the SES-9 satellite, which will provide for “both replacement and incremental capacity for a prime video neighbourhood over Asia which already serves over 22 million households with high quality broadcast solutions”.
The mission was originally set for launch in late in 2015 and will undergo a modification in order to minimise the impact of the delay.
“Now we’re in this factory transformation to go from building six or eight a year to about 18 cores a year”, Shotwell said, according to Gizmodo. The flight remained grounded as the launch company resolved unspecified concerns with the rocket’s second stage, industry officials said. SpaceX, as a result, will try to land the booster, an “autonomous spaceport drone ship”, on ocean platform.
SpaceX is additionally looking to re fly its rockets, conceivably slicing dispatch costs.
Because the Falcon 9 rocket will deploy SES 9 into a different orbit, the launcher will need to go higher and faster after liftoff. In December 2013, SpaceX successfully launched the SES-8 satellite.
SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell made the announcement at the Federal Aviation Administration’s Commercial Space Transportation Conference last week.
The launch is going to be first one by SpaceX from the Cape since December 21, a mission often talked about because of the booster’s successful landing on shore.
Importantly, SpaceX is modifying the rocket and will see the satellite get into orbit speedier than first envisioned.
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The launch attempt comes just five days after a ULA Atlas V delivered a Global Positioning System satellite to orbit from Cape Canaveral for the U.S. Air Force.
