Weather didn’t cooperate for a SpaceX satellite launch late Tuesday and into Wednesday morning on what would have been the 26th launch for the Space Coast in 2023, and another night of storms in Central Florida with more slated for Thursday prompted SpaceX to punt until Friday before trying again.
A Falcon 9 carrying the Arabsat BADR-8 telecommunications satellite headed for geosynchronous orbit had a 127-minute launch window that opened at 11:25 p.m. Tuesday, but SpaceX kept pushing the target liftoff time as storms passed over the region throughout the night.
Now targeting Friday night, the same launch window from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 will open at 11:25 p.m. and run through 1:32 a.m. Saturday.
Space Launch Delta 45’s weather squadron’s forecast, though, still says there’s only a 40% chance for good launch conditions on Friday, but that would improve to 80% if delayed until Saturday.
It’s the fourth night launch planned for SpaceX this month with three previous successful Starlink missions from Cape Canaveral lighting up the sky in the wee hours.
If it does go up, the first-stage booster would be making its 14th flight with a planned recovery on SpaceX’s droneship Just Read the Instructions down range in the Atlantic Ocean.
This is the second launch SpaceX has done for Arabsat following what was the first Falcon Heavy launch with a customer in 2019. SpaceX has a third launch contracted for what will be the first of Arabsat’s seventh-generation satellites. The company provides communications for the Middle East and North Africa, but expanding into Europe and Central Asia.
SpaceX’s busy year includes 24 of the 25 launches from the Space Coast so far with the only other one coming from Relativity Space and its 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket. SpaceX’s busiest month was in March with seven liftoffs.
The combined launches from Canaveral and KSC saw a record 57 orbital rockets from all companies fly in 2022 with SLD 45 commander Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy reporting earlier this year the Space Coast could see up to 92 launches in 2023.
4 astronauts blast off from KSC on private Axiom Space mission to the ISS
The Arabsat launch would be SpaceX’s 19th from Cape Canaveral with another six flown from Kennedy Space Center including this past Sunday’s crewed launch of the Axiom Space Ax-2 mission to the International Space Station.
The company has also flown 10 times from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base for a combined 34 during a year that company CEO Elon Musk said might see as many as 100 across all of its launch complexes. It also attempted a suborbital flight of its in-development Starship and Super Heavy this year, but that ended with the rocket self-destructing before reaching space.
The company still has several high-profile launches with its active stable of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets this year including three more possible crewed launches from KSC. That includes the private Polaris Dawn mission commanded by billionaire Jared Isaacman, who flew to space on the Inspiration4 mission. Now targeting this summer, Polaris Dawn will be an orbital mission that aims to perform the first private tethered spacewalk. Slated for mid-August is the next replacement crew for the International Space Station on Crew-7, and a third Axiom Space mission to the ISS could fly as early as November.
SpaceX has at least three more Falcon Heavy missions on tap this year as well including its third Space Force mission USSF-52 targeting this summer and the launch of the delayed NASA Psyche probe in October.
NASA won’t be back in the launch business with its Space Launch System rocket for the Artemis II mission until late 2024, and the only other regular launch provider from the Space Coast — United Launch Alliance — has yet to fly in 2023, but it has several missions expected to fly this year after a series of delays.
That includes the second-to-last mission for its Delta IV Heavy on the NROL-68 mission for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command and the National Reconnaissance Office delayed from April now targeting June 21; an Atlas V launch on the first crewed flight of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner to the ISS as early as July 21 also delayed from April; and the first-ever flight of its new rocket Vulcan Centaur with the Astrobotic Peregrine lunar lander on the Certification-1 mission delayed from May, but without a target launch date beyond June or July, according to ULA CEO and President Tory Bruno.
