Storms halt SpaceX's first U.S. national
security space mission
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[December 21, 2018]
(Reuters) - Thunderstorms forced
Elon Musk's SpaceX to postpone Thursday's launch of a navigation
satellite for the U.S. military, which was poised to be the rocket
company's first national security space mission for the United States.
SpaceX said its Falcon 9 rocket and payload, a roughly $500 million GPS
satellite built by Lockheed Martin Corp, were "in good health" and that
it was now targeting a Saturday morning launch from Florida's Cape
Canaveral.
The cancellation, which followed two previous launch attempts this week
that were scrubbed for technical reasons, came as thunderstorms and wind
gusts swirled around the launch site.
Patrick Burke, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's
Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said the weather
might not clear up until Saturday.
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A successful launch would be a significant victory for Musk, a
billionaire and Tesla Inc chief executive, who spent years trying to
break into the lucrative market for military space launches, long
dominated by Lockheed and Boeing Co.
It would have marked SpaceX's first so-called National Security Space
mission, as defined by the U.S. military, SpaceX said.
SpaceX sued the U.S. Air Force in 2014 in protest over the military's
award of a multibillion-dollar, non-compete contract for 36 rocket
launches to United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Boeing and
Lockheed. It dropped the lawsuit in 2015 after the Air Force agreed to
open up competition.
The next year, SpaceX won an $83 million Air Force contract in 2016 to
launch the GPS III satellite, which will have a lifespan of 15 years.
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![](../images/122118pics/news_L25.jpg)
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to launch a U.S. Air Force
navigation satellite, sits on Launch Complex 40 after the launch was
postponed after an abort procedure was triggered by the onboard
flight computer, at Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., December 18,
2018. REUTERS/Steve Nesius/File Photo
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The launch would be the first of 32 satellites in production by
Lockheed under contracts worth a combined $12.6 billion for the Air
Force GPS III program, Lockheed spokesman Chip Eschenfelder said.
Air Force spokesman William Russell said: "Once fully operational,
this latest generation of GPS satellites will bring new capabilities
to users, including three times greater accuracy and up to eight
times the anti-jamming capabilities."
The launch was originally scheduled for 2014 but has been hobbled by
production delays, the Air Force said.
The next GPS III satellite is due to launch in mid-2019,
Eschenfelder said, while subsequent satellites undergo testing in
the company's Colorado processing facility.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Peter Szekely in New York, and
Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Additional reporting by Joey Roulette in
Seattle; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Steve Orlofsky)
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