The delayed Fire Florida launch earlier this week, scheduled for the weekend, could start with the United Launch Alliance Delta 4 Heavy Flight from Saturday and possibly two two SpaceX flights nine hours from Sunday that will mark the company’s 100th and 101st orbital missions. .
If SpaceX is pushed forward and both rockets land – and the weather is not ideal – it will mark a short period between 1966 between two U.S. orbital-class missions.
But the ULA has prioritized the National Reconnaissance Office with a plan to launch the Fish Spy Satellite into orbit early Saturday with only one in five powerful Delta 4 Heavy in the company’s inventory.
William Harwood / CBS News
Forecasters are targeting a liftoff from Pad 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 2:04 a.m. Saturday, with an 80 percent chance of good weather.
The ULA originally planned to launch a national security mission on Wednesday, clearing the way for SpaceX to launch a Falcon 9 rocket that had just flown over the nearby Complex 40 on Friday evening, putting Argentina’s SOCOM 1B remote-sensing satellite into polar orbit.
The California rocket builder then plans to launch the 12th batch of the company’s Starlink Internet Relay satellites from the Pad 39 on Saturday morning at the Kennedy Space Center. That flight was later moved to Sunday.
The launch of Delta 4 was delayed at the request of the NRO and then again on Saturday due to technical issues that arose during the launch attempt as early as Thursday.
SpaceX is expected to launch on Sunday. Air Force launch weather forecasts and ore f-shore warnings indicated that the Starlink flight was targeted to launch from Pad 39 at 10:08 a.m. Sunday, while Saocom 1B will launch from Pad 40 to 7:18 p.m.
The launch of SAOCOM-1B will be the first since 1969 to follow a southerly path to orbit around the Earth’s poles.
But weather difficulties could also. The 45th Space Wing forecast on Friday demanded a 50 percent chance of an acceptable position on Sunday morning, dropping to 40 percent that day.
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