SpaceX’s upgraded Falcon 9 booster powered up to full throttle in a brief ignition at the company’s Central Texas test site this week as engineers prepare for the rocket’s return to flight as soon as mid-November with a European communications satellite.
The beginning of November will be the earliest SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket can resume launching after a June 28 failure blamed on a deficient structural support brace inside the the vehicle’s second stage, a SpaceX executive said Monday.
The long queue of satellites waiting on launches aboard SpaceX’s Falcon rockets — a backlog the company says is worth $7 billion — will stay grounded while investigators determine what caused a Falcon 9 booster to disintegrate after liftoff Sunday.
A communications payload owned by the Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES will ride the first launch of an upgraded Falcon 9 rocket in mid-2015, SES officials said Friday.
SpaceX will kick off a busy 2015 calendar playing catch-up, with liftoff of a Dragon supply ship for the International Space Station set for Tuesday after a delay from December.