SpaceX sets launch date for later this month, sea landing likely

SpaceX will make its next launch attempt on February 24th when it attempts to put a SES-9 satellite into orbit 35,000km above the equator. The Luxembourg based-owner of the satellite announced the launch date on a Falcon 9 rocket Monday. It did not provide a launch window.

Because the rocket will expend nearly all of its fuel to reach this higher orbit, it will not have enough left to return to a landing site on the Florida coast as a similar launch did in December. Therefore SpaceX is expected to attempt a fourth sea-based landing on an autonomous drone ship.

The company's previous tries have failed, but the last attempt in January came close. One of the rocket's four landing legs failed to lock out, even as the Falcon 9 booster made a feathery touchdown on the drone ship in high seas. "We stuck the landing, and then we unstuck it," said Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX at a Federal Aviation Administration conference last week.

After the SES-9 launch later this month, Shotwell said the company hopes to resume a more regular cadence of launches "every few weeks" for the remainder of the year. She also said the company hopes to, at some point later this year, refly a booster that has already launched one payload into orbit.