CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.– The flight of Spacecom’s AMOS-17 telecommunications satellite has been postponed indefinitely according to a tweet posted by the Air Force Space Command on Aug. 3. This hold-up comes soon after SpaceX, the launch service provider, had introduced a problem with the rocket and the requirement for added testing.
On Wednesday, July 31, the firm conducted a fixed examination fire of the nine Merlin 1D engines situated in the Falcon 9’s first stage. The test fire was executed at Cape Canaveral Flying force Station’s Space Release Complex 40 (SLC-40) in Florida. Normally, the fixed examination fire is one of the last obstacles the Falcon 9 goes through prior to flight.
On Saturday, Aug. 3, Space Shore Daily uploaded an upgrade mentioning that the launch would certainly wait till a minimum of Monday, Aug. 5, 2019. SpaceX made the following declaration through Twitter: Group is setting up an extra static fire test of Falcon 9 after changing a suspect shutoff. Will verify upgraded target launch day for AMOS-17 once total..
After that 2nd static examination fire of the Falcon 9 rocket was accomplished on the evening of Saturday, Aug. 3 the AF Room Command posted the adhering to on Twitter: Update: The AMOS-17 satellite launch has actually pushed till a time to be revealed. The satellite will certainly give telecoms gain access to across the Center East, Africa and also Europe as well as will eventually end up in a geostationary orbit around the Planet.
Interestingly, an additional branch of the U.S. Air Force, the 45th Area Wing has published that the next launch attempt might happen as early as Aug. 6.
When it does fly, the rocket’s initial stage will not try to touch down atop the business’s “Naturally I Still Love You” Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (which is made use of when the Falcon 9 sends out rockets to Geostationary Transfer Orbits). This is because of the needs of sending the AMOS-17 satellite to the appropriate orbit.