Dec. 21 (UPI) — One of two scheduled Falcon 9 rocket launches lifted off early Saturday with one gping up in California but aborted in Florida.
The launch of four Astranis satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station originally was scheduled for about midnight Friday, with backup opportunities until 2:28 a.m. But just as the rocket’s nine engines fired, SpaceX officials announced that it would be aborted with no reason.
SpaceX is aiming for Sunday with a 129-minute window.
The satellites will be in a geostationary orbit 22,300 miles from the ground.
At 3:34 a.m. PST, SpaceX launched its second, mid-inclination rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
It was more than half a year after Bandwagon-1 lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in April.
About than eight minutes after liftoff, B1071 returned for a touchdown at Landing Zone 4. This was the 22nd booster landing at LZ-4 and the 386th booster landing to date.