SpaceX Tries Its Rocket Landing Again Tonight

[Buster's Uncle]

SpaceX Tries Its Rocket Landing Again Tonight
Popular Mechanics
By John Wenz  4 hours ago



SpaceX has been trying to launch an SES satellite into geostationary orbit since February 24, but lots of complicating factors keep pushing back that launch. At first it was a problem with the rocket's liquid oxygen cooling, and then destructively sharp winds in its flight path. But tonight, the company says it's ready for another go. This will be the fifth total attempt in the past 10 days.

As reported by Florida Today, there's a 90 percent chance the rocket will lift off tonight between 6:35 p.m. and 8:05 p.m. EST, the given launch window. If something goes wrong this time, the launch could be pushed into this weekend.

The company still plans on attempting a landing on its drone ship 400 miles off the coast. Because of the amount of thrust needed to reach geostationary orbit, however, they do not expect to stick the landing despite using the updated Falcon 9 that successfully landed on solid ground in December.

You can watch the launch at the below video. The landing attempt won't be broadcast, but expect images and videos to come out shortly after the attempted landing. If SpaceX somehow pulls it off, it'll be pretty monumental. But that is a huge, huge, huge if.

SES-9 Full Webcast

http://news.yahoo.com/spacex-tries-rocket-landing-again-152703912.html


I'm not sure this isn't Friday news, but the timestamp IS 4 hours ago...