SpaceX says engineers completed inspections of the Falcon Heavy rocket, satellite payloads and ground systems at Kennedy Space Center after a lightning strike on the launch pad tower Thursday night, part of a wave of severe weather that forced officials to delay the launch attempt. .
The countdown to Thursday’s launch of the Falcon Heavy was canceled due to severe weather around NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which included lightning and a tornado warning. Takeoff has been rescheduled for no later than Friday 7:29 PM EST (2329 UTC), opening a 57-minute launch window.
Cameras around the launch pad captured views of lightning striking the lightning protection mast atop the fixed turret at Platform 39A. The lightning mast is designed to deflect electrical charges down the chain wires to the ground, and away from the missile standing on the launch pad. The system appears to be working as intended.
Here’s a video of that lightning strike on the Falcon Heavy launch pad. pic.twitter.com/YOe9a9AwQW
– SpaceflightNow (@SpaceflightNow) April 28, 2023
The Falcon Heavy rocket is waiting for liftoff with the Viasat 3 Americas Broadband Satellite, a high-powered spacecraft headed into geostationary orbit to send Internet signals to rural consumers, passengers of planes, and ships across North and South America. It is the first of three new satellites built by Boeing to expand Viasat’s internet coverage from the Americas to new markets in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific regions.
Two small flight-sharing payloads for Astranis and Gravity Space will fly on a Falcon Heavy rocket to synchronous near-Earth orbit more than 20,000 miles (about 35,000 kilometers) above the equator. Launching the Falcon Heavy into high-altitude orbit is challenging, as it requires all of the rocket’s propellant and eliminates any chance of recovery of the rocket’s three first-stage boosters.
The ViaSat 3 Americas mission will be the sixth flight of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
Stormy weather could be a problem again Friday night, with the official forecast predicting a 70% chance of weather violating Falcon Heavy launch criteria. The main weather concerns are with anvil clouds and the risk of lightning.
“Friday will be another active day as a low pressure tracked area across the mid-South draws a front boundary into Florida,” meteorologists from the US Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron wrote in their forecast. “The boundary will bring activity moving west to east toward the spaceport by midday and continuing through the afternoon. Most activity may be south or offshore from the spaceport by the start of the standby window, but given the current uncertainty, at least a few clouds are expected. Lingering debris and anvil through the window.”
Stormy weather is expected to continue into Saturday.
SpaceX also plans to launch a Falcon 9 rocket Friday afternoon from nearby Pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with a pair of O3b mPOWER internet satellites owned by SES, a Luxembourg-based satellite operator. The Falcon 9/O3b mPOWER mission has a launch window that opens at 5:12 p.m. EDT (2112 UTC), but storm forecasts for central Florida also threaten to delay that launch.
Email the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @tweet.
“Twitteraholic. Total bacon fan. Explorer. Typical social media practitioner. Beer maven. Web aficionado.”