SpaceX sets launch date for later this month, sea landing likely

The company hasn’t landed a booster intact on a drone ship yet in three tries, but came tantalizingly close the last time, during the January launch from California of Jason-3, an worldwide ocean-monitoring mission.

SpaceX and SES have established February 24 as the mutually agreed date for the launch of SES 9, with February 25 as the backup date. The satellite weighs 11,700-pound (5,300-kg) and has been manufactured by Boeing.

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, will attempt its second launch of the year this month, as it ramps up production of its Falcon 9 rockets to handle more than $8 billion of business for NASA and commercial companies, officials said. The satellite will be positioned at 108.2 degrees east to provide both replacement and incremental capacity over Asia. Subsequent on-orbit maneuvers will be executed with electric propulsion. The spacecraft will be co-located with SES-7 and increases SES’s global video capabilities to serve fast-growing markets in Asia, including South Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

The launch will be SpaceX’s first from the Cape since December 21, a mission remembered best for the booster’s successful landing on shore.

SpaceX is additionally looking to re fly its rockets, conceivably slicing dispatch costs.

SpaceX returned a repaired and upgraded Falcon 9 rocket to flight in December. SES 9 was originally slated to be next in line for a Falcon 9 launch, but SpaceX preferred first flying the Orbcomm mission, which went into a relatively low orbit several hundred miles above Earth and required only one firing by the rocket’s upper stage engine.

Another satellite expected to launch aboard a Falcon 9 in the coming months is the JCSAT 14 spacecraft, a multipurpose telecom platform owned by Japan’s Sky Perfect JSAT Corp.