SpaceX set to launch next rocket on Monday

[Buster's Uncle]

SpaceX set to launch next rocket on Monday
Orlando Sentinel
By Marco Santana• October 27, 2017, 5:22 PM



This photo provided by Vandenberg Air Force Base shows the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Space Launch Complex-4 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., Monday, Oct. 9, 2017. (Ian Dudley / AP)



Television service in all of Australia, most of Africa and much of Asia will get a boost thanks to a satellite scheduled to take off from Florida’s Space Coast on Monday.

The window for SpaceX’s launch of the Koreasat 5A, a communications satellite for a South Korea-based company, opens at 3:34 p.m. and closes at 5:58 p.m.

SpaceX on Thursday sent out a Tweet indicating that the company had conducted a static-fire test on the rocket, a standard test that precedes a launch.

If the launch goes off without a hitch, it would mark the third time this month that SpaceX has launched a rocket, twice from Florida.

On Oct. 9, SpaceX carried 10 new satellites into space from California.

The company followed that up shortly thereafter, sending a satellite into space from Florida on Oct. 11. That launch happened on a previously launched rocket, marking the third time it had done that.

As of Friday, the U.S. Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron said that the probability of weather causing a delay was nearly nonexistent, placing the likelihood of favorable launch weather at 90 percent.

“The primary, very slight weather concern is for the stronger winds to linger into Monday’s launch window,” a statement on the agency’s website said.


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