The reports suggested that SpaceX has planned to launch its actual Falcon 9 rocket at 5.40 p.m. on Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
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After the launch, SpaceX will try to land the Falcon 9’s first stage on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean. If this landing is successful, it will be the fourth time that SpaceX has recovered the rocket’s first stage.
Perfecting the landing of the first stage of its Falcon 9 rockets brings SpaceX closer to its ultimate goal: Making these rockets reusable, and thereby dramatically cutting the cost of spaceflight. But it said the same thing about the last landing it attempted, and that went more or less perfectly to plan. A successful booster landing would be the company’s third in a row.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently reported that the booster recovered May 6th sustained the most damage yet of SpaceX’s three landed rockets, raising doubts about whether it could be launched again.
The Falcon will be carrying a 7,000-pound Thai communications satellite called Thaicom 8.
For this launch, THAICOM 8 is initially headed to a supersynchronous transfer orbit, which will put it beyond that 36,000 km distance.
The SpaceX commercial cargo resupply mission is set to launch at exactly 1:32am on July 16 said NASA in an official statement. As of Tuesday afternoon, weather conditions look good for the launch.
The mission will be the 25th flight of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket since the commercial booster debuted in June 2010.
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The satellite will deploy two four-panel solar wings once it’s in space to provide satellite coverage to areas of eastern Africa, India and Thailand.
