Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

Forecasters will be watching clouds and rain showers during the countdown before Monday’s launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Turkmenistan’s first communications satellite.

Continuing a series of delays keeping NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer on Earth, NASA announced Tuesday that the satellite’s launch aboard an air-dropped Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket will not occur as scheduled Friday.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ignited its nine kerosene-fueled Merlin engines on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral on Tuesday evening in a critical milestone before liftoff with a commercial Thai communications satellite later in the week.