Flight-proven Falcon 9 with SES-10 scheduled for NET March 29

The Falcon 9 with the first stage – known as “core 21” – awaits its first launch on April 8, 2016. It will be flown for a second time no earlier than March 29, 2017. Photo Credit: Michael Deep / SpaceFlight Insider

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s first launch using a recovered Falcon 9 first stage will now take place no earlier than March 29, 2017. The two-day postponement of the SES-10 mission was due to range availability.

United Launch Alliance announced March 20 that it was delaying its Atlas V mission to send the S.S. John Glenn Cygnus cargo ship to the International Space Station by three days to March 27. As such, according to Florida Today, SpaceX is now targeting two days later.

SES-10 is an 11,700-pound (5,300-kilogram) communications satellite that will broadcast video and television to Central and South America. It was delivered to Cape Canaveral from Toulouse, France, back in January after being built and tested by Airbus Defence and Space. Since then, it has undergone final launch preparations including being fueled with hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide on March 16.

According to Spaceflight Now, the spacecraft was expected to be encapsulated inside the Falcon 9’s 43-foot (13.1-meter) tall, 17-foot (5.2-meter) wide fairing between March 18 and 19.

For the recovered booster, it has also gone through final pre-flight testing since its delivery from SpaceX’s test facility in McGregor, Texas. Since landing on the Of Course I Still Love You – SpaceX’s autonomous drone ship – after the CRS-8 mission on April 8, 2016, it has been cleaned, refurbished, and test fired.

For March 29, SpaceX has a 2.5-hour window, opening at 4:59 p.m. EDT (20:59 GMT), to launch SES-10 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A. If all goes well, the flight-proven booster will make its second landing on the Of Course I Still Love You downrange in the Atlantic Ocean.

If the Atlas V and Falcon 9 launch on their current schedules, it will mark four fights out of the Space Coast in two weeks.

Tagged: Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A Lead Stories SES-10 SpaceX

Derek Richardson

Derek Richardson has a degree in mass media, with an emphasis in contemporary journalism, from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. While at Washburn, he was the managing editor of the student run newspaper, the Washburn Review. He also has a website about human spaceflight called Orbital Velocity. You can find him on twitter @TheSpaceWriter.