A planned Friday night launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 52 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base has been delayed indefinitely.
Space Exploration Technologies announced the postponement Thursday evening, hours after conducting a morning static fire test at Space Launch Complex-4 on the South Base.
“SpaceX is standing down from launch of Starlink on Friday, Nov. 18 to take a closer look at data from static fire and will announce a new target launch date once confirmed,” the company said Thursday night.
It will be the first-stage booster’s 11th flight following missions from both Florida and California.
Once its chores are done, the first-stage booster would return to land on the drone ship, “Of Course I Still Love You,” parked in the Pacific Ocean several hundred miles away from Vandenberg.
The Falcon rocket will deliver dozens of small satellites for the SpaceX-led Starlink, a constellation of thousands of craft to provided internet service to remote areas across the globe.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.