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 Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida had been
planned for Sunday, but was called off two minutes before launch
because of a problem with an Air Force radar system needed to track
the rocket during flight.
Launch was retargeted for Monday, but a poor weather forecast
prompted SpaceX, as the California company is known, to reschedule
for Tuesday. Liftoff with the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or
DSCOVR, a partnership of NASA and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, is now planned for 6:05 p.m. EST/2305
GMT.
The delay positions SpaceX, a rapidly growing firm owned and
operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, for an unprecedented
simultaneous rocket launch and spaceship recovery, as it prepares
for Tuesday’s return of a Dragon cargo ship from the International
Space Station.
 The cargo capsule, launched during the last Falcon 9 rocket flight
in January, is due to depart the station at 2:09 p.m. EST/1909 GMT.
The station, owned and operated by 15 countries, is a $100 billion
laboratory that flies about 260 miles (418 km) above Earth.
Shortly after Dragon’s departure, a SpaceX launch team in Florida
will decide whether to proceed with fueling the two-stage rocket
with kerosene and liquid oxygen for flight. Meteorologists on Monday
were predicting a 70 percent chance of acceptable weather for the
sunset launch, NASA said.
As the launch countdown is under way, the Dragon capsule will fire
its braking rocket to leave orbit, aiming for a parachute splashdown
in the Pacific Ocean, about 310 miles (500 km) off the coast of Baja
California, at 4:44 PST/7:44 EST/0044 GMT.
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Meanwhile in the Atlantic, a second SpaceX recovery team will be
stationed near a floating landing pad where the discarded first
stage of the Falcon rocket due to launch at sunset will attempt to
touch down. SpaceX has been working on technology to recover and
reuse its rockets, potentially slashing launch costs.
The primary goal of Tuesday’s launch is to send the DSCOVR
observatory, a $340 million project, into an orbit that is more than
three times farther from Earth than the moon. Once in position, the
spacecraft will serve as a weather buoy to give forecasters about an
hour’s advance notice of potentially dangerous solar storms, which
can damage satellites, interrupt GPS signals and disrupt power grids
on Earth.
DSCOVR also has two Earth-watching sensors, including a camera that
will take pictures every two hours of the sun-lit side of the planet
that will be posted on the Internet.
(irene.klotz@thomsonreuters.com)
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