After last-second delays Sunday and Monday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket finally roared to life and streaked away from the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday evening, boosting a high-power Intelsat communications satellite into orbit in the California rocket builder's third flight in less than two weeks.
The launching capped particularly intense few days for SpaceX, beginning with the successful recovery of a Dragon cargo ship that splashed down early Sunday in the Pacific Ocean, bringing back more than 4,100 pounds of experiment samples and other equipment after a month-long visit to the International Space Station.
With the Dragon safely back on Earth, company engineers in Florida attempted to launch the Falcon 9 that evening only to be stopped at the T-minus 10-second mark because of a guidance and navigation system glitch. A second attempt Monday also was aborted at the 10-second point because of an unrelated problem.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk ruled out a July Fourth launch attempt, instead of ordering company engineers to spend the holiday reviewing telemetry and critical systems because, as he tweeted, "only one chance to get it right."
The Falcon 9 was cleared early Wednesday for a third launch try and this time around, it was clear sailing and the 229-foot-tall rocket thundered to life at 7:38 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) and climbed away from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center atop 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
Mounted in a protective nose cone at the top of the rocket was the Boeing-built Intelsat 35e communications satellite, the fourth in a series of all-digital relay stations, this one bound for an orbital slot 22,300 miles above the Atlantic Ocean to provide service to the eastern United States, the Caribbean, Western Europe and Africa. Read more...
The launching capped particularly intense few days for SpaceX, beginning with the successful recovery of a Dragon cargo ship that splashed down early Sunday in the Pacific Ocean, bringing back more than 4,100 pounds of experiment samples and other equipment after a month-long visit to the International Space Station.
With the Dragon safely back on Earth, company engineers in Florida attempted to launch the Falcon 9 that evening only to be stopped at the T-minus 10-second mark because of a guidance and navigation system glitch. A second attempt Monday also was aborted at the 10-second point because of an unrelated problem.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk ruled out a July Fourth launch attempt, instead of ordering company engineers to spend the holiday reviewing telemetry and critical systems because, as he tweeted, "only one chance to get it right."
The Falcon 9 was cleared early Wednesday for a third launch try and this time around, it was clear sailing and the 229-foot-tall rocket thundered to life at 7:38 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) and climbed away from historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center atop 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
Mounted in a protective nose cone at the top of the rocket was the Boeing-built Intelsat 35e communications satellite, the fourth in a series of all-digital relay stations, this one bound for an orbital slot 22,300 miles above the Atlantic Ocean to provide service to the eastern United States, the Caribbean, Western Europe and Africa. Read more...