spacetoday.net: Winds postpone DSCOVR launch

Posted: Wed, Feb 11, 2015, 6:29 AM ET (1129 GMT)
Falcon 9 v1.1 before DSCOVR launch (NASA/KSC)

Strong upper level winds forced SpaceX to postpone Tuesday's scheduled launch of an Earth and space sciences spacecraft from Cape Canaveral. The Falcon 9 v1.1 was scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 6:05 pm EST (2305 GMT) carrying the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) spacecraft. While weather conditions were acceptable on the ground, strong winds at higher altitudes led controllers to scrub the launch. The next launch attempt is scheduled for 6:03 pm EST (2303 GMT) Wednesday; if the launch doesn't take place then, it will be postponed until no earlier than February 20. DSCOVR is a joint mission of NASA, NOAA, and the Air Force to monitor space weather from the Earth-Sn L1 point and also take images of the Earth from that location. DSCOVR uses a spacecraft originally built in the late 1990s by NASA called Triana that was cancelled in 2001. SpaceX also plans to use the launch to attempt to land the rocket's first stage on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean, part of the company's efforts to develop a reusable first stage.