(Photo credit: NASA)
An early morning launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — carrying a Dragon cargo capsule — was canceled minutes before ignition, on Tuesday. Originally scheduled to blast into space at 6:20 a.m, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the launch was called off two minutes before lift off.
According to a tweet from SpaceX founder, Elon Musk, an upper-stage “z actuator” wasn’t acting as expected and the decision to scrub the launch was made.
Need to investigate the upper stage Z actuator. Was behaving strangely. Next launch attempt on Friday at 5am.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 6, 2015
The launch has been tentatively rescheduled for Friday, Jan. 9 at 5:09 a.m. local time. “The technical glitch, known as ‘actuator drift,’ would have forced an automatic abort if left unchecked,” reported space.com.
The massive 180-foot Falcon 9 rocket is not tentatively rescheduled to launch at 5:09 a.m. EST on Friday, Jan. 9. Weather in the area, around the time of the launch, looks relatively favorable at this time. With a chance of an isolated shower, partly cloudy skies and winds out of the west at 5 to 10-mph.
If all goes as planned, the SpaceX rocket will shuttle supplies to the International Space Station. NASA also says this launch will carry “CATS, a laser instrument to measure clouds and the location and distribution of pollution, dust, smoke, and other particulates in the atmosphere.”
This is the fifth SpaceX launch, under a 12 launch contract with NASA, worth nearly $1.6 billion.
WeatherNation will bring you the latest on the launch this Friday.
Meteorologist Alan Raymond