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According to The Verge, SpaceX set to launch mysterious Zuma payload tomorrow night.
Tomorrow night[11/16], SpaceX will launch perhaps its most secretive payload yet: a classified government satellite built by defense contractor Northrop Grumman. The purpose of the mission, codenamed Zuma, is essentially unknown. It's unclear what kind of spacecraft is going up, or which government agency the launch is for. All we really know is that Zuma is scheduled to go into lower Earth orbit on top of a Falcon 9 rocket out of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Zuma mission only became public in October, when NASASpaceflight.com reported on documents that SpaceX had filed with the Federal Communications Commission, requesting authorization for a mysterious "Mission 1390." A few days later, several news outlets confirmed that Zuma would launch a Northrop Grumman-made payload. The contractor had been assigned by the US government to find a rocket for the launch, and Northrop Grumman ultimately picked the Falcon 9.
Spaceflightnow.com will have live coverage Thursday evening.
The Falcon 9's two-hour launch window opens at 8 p.m. EST Thursday (0100 GMT Friday) from pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX's live video webcast begins around 15 minutes prior to launch, and will be available on this page.
[...] There is a 90 percent chance of favorable weather Thursday night, according to an outlook issued by the U.S. Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron earlier today.
The only slight concern is with cumulus clouds that might move over the launch pad.
A live webcast is available on YouTube starting approximately 15 minutes before scheduled launch time.
[Update - Apparently the launch has been postponed until a later date. SpaceX tweeted "Standing down on Zuma mission to take a closer look at data from recent fairing testing for another customer.". - Fnord666]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 17 2017, @02:24AM (1 child)
Too risky to lose to a fairing failure?
Or cover story because Kim Jong Un promised to be nice.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Friday November 17 2017, @08:48AM
No reason to delay because of KJU. If the fairing doesn't separate properly or at all, bad things happen. A bad separation could re-contact the second stage and cause damage or not separate at all and the mission fails. OCO mission failure: http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-disasters/rocket-failure/oco-lessons-learned-opportunities-lost/ [spacesafetymagazine.com]
Questioning science is how you do science!