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 Liftoff of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon freighter was
rescheduled for 1:53 a.m. EDT/0553 GMT on Sunday. Meteorologists
expected a 60 percent chance of acceptable weather.
The mission is the fourth under the company’s 12-flight, $1.6
billion contract with NASA to fly cargo to the station, a $100
billion research complex that flies about 260 miles (420 km) above
Earth.
A launch on Sunday would come just two weeks after another Falcon 9
rocket blasted off to deliver a commercial communications satellite
into orbit for Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecommunications
Holdings Ltd.
"We are ramping up for that launch rate, and actually even more than
that," Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX vice president of mission assurance,
told a news conference on Friday.
"In the future, I anticipate that this will be the norm."
SpaceX has a backlog of nearly 50 launches, worth nearly $5 billion,
on its manifest for NASA and commercial satellite operators, said
company spokesman John Taylor.
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On Tuesday, SpaceX also won a second NASA contract, worth up to $2.6
billion, to upgrade and fly its Dragon capsules for astronauts – and
potentially paying passengers as well. A crewed Dragon spaceship is
targeted for a debut test flight in 2016.
(Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Paul Tait)
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