Several hours just after contacting off a start of a unique rocket from a nearby launch pad, SpaceX’s start crew loaded a Falcon 9 rocket with propellant Saturday and fired its nine main engines on pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Power Station, location the phase for a liftoff with a South Korean army satellite as soon as Tuesday amid a chaotic stretch of missions for the California-dependent rocket company.

SpaceX floor crews raised the Falcon 9 rocket vertical on pad 40 Saturday early morning. An automatic computer-controlled sequencer commanded tremendous-chilled, densified kerosene and liquid oxygen into the Falcon 9 Saturday afternoon.

The countdown culminated in ignition of the rocket’s nine Merlin 1D most important engines at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). The engines throttled up to total electrical power, producing 1.7 million kilos of thrust for various seconds while clamps restrained the Falcon 9 on the start pad.

Onlookers noticed a plume of exhaust coming from the rocket and verified the the examination-firing happened. SpaceX was predicted to officially release an update on the final result of the static hearth exam immediately after a fast-appear details critique.

The Falcon 9 will be reduced and rolled back inside of SpaceX’s hangar near pad 40, where by technicians will connect a European-manufactured communications satellite named Anasis 2 created for the South Korean army.

Assuming the remaining days of launch preparations go according to approach, SpaceX options to launch the mission Tuesday for the duration of a almost 4-hour window opening at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) and extending till 8:55 p.m. EDT (0055 GMT).

The static fire check Saturday for the Anasis 2 mission transpired the exact day SpaceX prepared to launch a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Room Middle, situated a few miles north of pad 40. SpaceX introduced Saturday early morning that it named off the start from pad 39A “to let more time for checkouts.”

SpaceX tweeted that teams “working to recognize the upcoming start opportunity” for the mission from pad 39A, which will loft SpaceX’s following 57 Starlink broadband Online satellites and a pair of industrial BlackSky Earth-imaging microsatellites.

The Starlink/BlackSky launch was meant to choose off June 26, but SpaceX delayed the mission to conduct more pre-start checkouts. A start try Wednesday was scrubbed minutes before liftoff by weak weather conditions.

The organization has not disclosed any facts about the character of the problems — other than temperature — that have delayed the Starlink/BlackSky mission. As of Saturday night, it was not crystal clear no matter whether SpaceX may well progress with Tuesday’s planned Anasis 2 launch future, or if there could possibly be a different prospect to start the Starlink/BlackSky mission as before long as Monday.

SpaceX has launched 11 Falcon 9 missions so considerably this calendar year, most recently on June 30, when a Falcon 9 rocket took off from pad 40 with a U.S. military services GPS navigation satellite.

Created by Airbus Defense and Space, the Anasis 2 satellite is shrouded in secrecy at the wishes of the the spacecraft’s proprietor — the South Korean governing administration.

Anasis 2 is dependent on the Eurostar E3000 spacecraft system built by Airbus, but specifics about its performance have been stored under wraps. The Anasis 2 satellite is expected to launch into an elliptical transfer orbit, then use its on-board propulsion method to get to a circular orbit at geostationary altitude much more than 22,000 miles (just about 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.,

South Korea procured the satellite — previously regarded as KMilSatCom 1 — by an arrangement to offset South Korea’s order of F-35A fighter jets from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin in the end subcontracted the satellite production offer to Airbus.

Ahead of Anasis 2, South Korea’s military services has relied on international and civilian-owned satellites for communications.

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