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SpaceX aborts Falcon 9 launch again

No reason given to ground bird

SpaceX has scrubbed its planned orbital delivery with just 101 seconds left on the countdown clock.

No reason has been given as yet for the "Hold, hold, hold" command, but the rocket was in the last stages of preparation when it was made. Engineers had been testing the rocket's nine nozzles to make sure all were able to move and steer the rocket and the last of the super-chilled oxygen fuel was topping off the tanks.

The Falcon 9 rocket was due to lift off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 18:47 local time (23:47 UTC) carrying the SES-9 satellite up into geostationary orbit. It would have been a first for the upgraded Falcon 9 Full Thrust, which has larger fuel tanks and more thrust than previous hardware.

Because of the amount of fuel needed to deliver the satellite into such a high orbit, an attempt to land the Falcon's first stage on land wasn't possible, so once again the company's floating barge Of Course I Still Love You was dragged out to sea for the landing attempt.

SpaceX wasn't hopeful the landing would be a success because of the tight fuel limits required to achieve the primary mission's distant launch. Water landings are inherently more risky than bringing the Falcon down on land, as the firm did last year, and the low fuel state of the bird makes it even more likely to fail.

The landing is, however, a bonus and not a goal. The main job, actually getting the satellite into orbit, is on its way to completion, about 38,000 kilometers up. SpaceX will put it most of the way there and the satellite will use its electrical ion drive to make it the rest of the way, a process that will take weeks after it eventually gets off the ground.

The SES-9 satellite will provide video and data services for Asia, and seven more birds are due to be launched by the company to provide over 7,000 channels of entertainment to over a billion people on the continent.

But to do that it actually needs to fly, and that may now take a little time. SpaceX had been due to launch on Wednesday but bad weather left that mission scrubbed. After today's hold there might be another attempt by the end of the week, or possibly in early March. ®

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