The Air Force and United Launch Alliance are now targeting a Sunday night launch of a Global Positioning System satellite atop a Delta IV rocket, after Friday's first attempt scrubbed because of a spacecraft telemetry problem.
The issue couldn't be resolved in time to try a Saturday launch, as was hoped immediately aftr the scrub.
The targeted launch time Sunday is 11:17 p.m., the opening of an 18-minute window at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 37.
The weather forecast is 70 percent "go," slightly worse than the near-perfect conditions Friday and that were expected again Saturday, but still good.
Friday's countdown appeared flawlewss until shortly before teams were about to pick up from a planned hold at T minus five minutes, setting the stage for an on-time liftoff at 11:25 p.m.
The telemetry issue was first noted then, and the liftoff time was reset to the end of the launch window at 11:43 p.m. to provide time to try to resolve the problem.
The countdown resumed at 11:38 p.m. but was quickly aborted after a launch controller monitoring spacecraft systems yelled, "Hold! Hold! Hold!"
In a statement, the Air Force said the telemetry signal between the GPS satellite and the satellite ground support equipment was lost.
After tentativley rescheudling the launch for Saturday, the Air Force announced after 1 a.m. that the second attempt would be Sunday.
The Delta IV is carrying the first in a new generation of 12 Boeing Co.-built satellites intended to replenish and modernize the GPS constellation, part of a $1.6 billion program known as block IIF.
Space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral 
1 comment:
Glad these guys r covering this, because I went down to the dock to see this last night, struggled to find coverage (via cell phone i-net) and noticed it was scrubbed through the only source I could find... my own eyes.
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