Posted: Sat, May 10, 2014, 8:44 AM ET (1244 GMT)
SpaceX has postponed a launch that had been scheduled for Saturday of six small commercial communications satellites because of an unspecified launch vehicle issue. The Falcon 9 v1.1 had been scheduled to launch Saturday morning from Cape Canaveral and place into orbit six ORBCOMM Generation 2 (OG2) satellites for satellite operator ORBCOMM. SpaceX announced around midday Friday, though, that an issue during an attempted hot-fire test of the vehicle on the pad would delay the launch past this weekend. Range conflicts with two other launches at the Cape would likely delay the mission until late May, the company said, without providing details about the technical issue that delayed this launch. The OG2 satellites, each weighing 170 kilograms, are part of a fleet that will replace the company's existing constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that provide data communications.
