SpaceX sets December 28 launch date for US military’s X-37B space plane
Al Jazeera
Original plan to send spacecraft into orbit was scrubbed due to poor weather conditions in Florida.
SpaceX has said it has earmarked December 28 for the launch of the United States military’s X-37B robot space plane on its seventh mission to orbit.
“Now targeting no earlier than Thursday, December 28 for the Falcon Heavy to launch USSF-52 to orbit from Florida,” SpaceX said in a post on X on Friday, after it delayed the launch earlier this week to perform additional system checks.
The original plan to send the spacecraft to orbit late on Sunday was scrubbed due to poor weather conditions at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The delays came on what was to have been the seventh mission flown by the unmanned X-37B, and its first launch atop a Falcon Heavy, composed of three reusable rocket cores strapped together and capable of lofting the vehicle far higher in orbit than ever before.
Roughly the size of a small bus and resembling a miniature space shuttle craft, the X-37B is built to deploy various payloads and conduct technology experiments in long-duration orbital flights.
