SpaceX delays rocket launch to International Space Station – CBC.ca

SpaceX will have to wait at least another day to launch from NASA's historic moon pad.Last-minute rocket trouble forced SpaceX to halt Saturday's countdown at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

The unmanned Falcon rocket remains at Launch Complex 39A, waiting to soar on a space station delivery mission. It's the same pad where Americans flew to the moon almost a half-century ago, and where the shuttle program ended in 2011.

The problem concerned an issue with the steering system ofthe rocket's upper stage, SpaceX said.

This will be SpaceX's first Florida launch since a rocket explosion last summer.The next launch attempt could come as early as Sunday morning.

NASA leased the pad to Elon Musk's company in 2014.

"We are honoured to be allowed to use it," Musk said in a tweet noting its historic significance.

The nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station pad where SpaceX had been launching its Falcon 9 rockets was damaged during a fuelling accident in September. The company expects to return the pad to service later this year after repairs.

For its Kennedy Space Center debut, SpaceX will launch a Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station for NASA, followed by several commercial satellite flights through the spring.

SpaceX has a backlog of more than 70 missions worth more than $10 billion.

Within about two years, the company expects to add human spaceflight to its launch services. The U.S. space agencyhas hired SpaceX and Boeing Co. to ferry astronauts to the space station, breaking a Russian monopoly in effect since the shuttles were retired.

For human spaceflight, SpaceX will need to build up 39A's launch tower and hang a new walkway so astronauts can access the Crew Dragon spaceship, said Stephen Payne, NASA's launch integration manager for the Commercial Crew program.

"It's kind of neat to go outside and look at the pad changing and see how what was once the future is becoming the present," Payne said in an interview.

The privately owned firm has not said how much it spent to refurbish the complex. Its transformation is the most visible of dozens of changes at Kennedy Space Center since the end of the shuttle program.

Boeing has taken over all three of the orbiter processing hangers, including one for its CST-100 Starliner commercial space taxi.

Just beyond the centre's gates, Jeff Bezo's space company Blue Origin is building a factory to manufacture its New Glenn rockets, which will fly satellites and eventually people from a new nearby launch pad.

NASA is keeping the second shuttle launch pad, 39B, and the massive Vehicle Assembly Building, for its own crewed Orion spaceships and heavy-lift Space Launch System rockets.

"In the entire history of human spaceflight, there have only been three countries that have ever flown in space, and here we're going to have four separate and distinct programs at the centre," said Kennedy Space Center planning director Tom Engler.

"It's just amazing when you think about it," he said.

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SpaceX delays rocket launch to International Space Station - CBC.ca