A SpaceX rocket filled with an assortment of small satellites from across globe will wait until at least Friday to depart from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
With approximately 15 minutes remaining, the countdown clock for the Falcon standing at Space Launch Complex-4 paused Wednesday morning.
The next attempt will occur between 10:18 and 11:15 a.m. Friday, according to SpaceX and base officials.
Shortly after 10 a.m. Wednesday, a SpaceX representative confirmed the team had halted the countdown clock.
“We’ve checked in with the teams and we are standing down from launch today,” a SpaceX representative said as live webcast started.
Both the rocket and payloads remain healthy, according to SpaceX.
“There are a thousand ways that a launch can go wrong and only one way that it can go right. So given that, we are overly cautious on the ground and if the team or the vehicle sees anything that just looks even slightly off they’ll stop the countdown,” a SpaceX livestream commentator said.
Whatever issue arose apparently could not be resolved before the end of the 57-minute widow to get the payloads where they need to be placed in space.
The Transporter-15 payloads stacked in place before begin tucked into the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing or nose cone. Credit: SpaceX photo
The Transporter-15 mission had been delayed twice before Thursday’s attempt with the government shutdown accounting for one delay.
This will be the 30th flight for the first-stage booster, which is scheduled to land on a droneship in the Pacific Ocean.
On board this rocket are 140 payloads, including cubesats, microsats, hosted payloads, and orbital transfer vehicles carrying 13 of those missions to be deployed at a later time.
In addition to Santa Barbara-based Umbra, customers include Planet Labs LLC, OHB Italia, ExoLaunch and NASA.
Deployment of the payloads will start 54 minutes after liftoff and finish more than 99 minutes later.
A live webcast of the mission is scheduled to begin about 15 minutes before liftoff at spacex.com/launches and on X @SpaceX.
To watch the liftoff in person, the Lompoc Valley has multiple locations offering views of the launch pad. Those include the peak of Harris Grade Road, west of Lompoc’s city limits and around Vandenberg Village, including near the intersection of Moonglow and Stardust roads.
