The Falcon 9 heavy rocket may blast off from a launch pad in California on December 16 for the first launch since a launchpad explosion in September, Iridium Communications said.
“Launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, the Falcon 9 rocket will deliver 10 Iridium NEXT satellites into low-earth orbit,” the company said in a statement.
The launch, tentatively scheduled for 12:36 p.m. PST (23:36 Moscow time), is yet to be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.
On September 1, an explosion rocked the SpaceX launch site in Florida during a routine test start of the Falcon 9 engines, destroying the rocket and its payload. The test was conducted two days before the scheduled blastoff to take an Israeli satellite, Amos-6, into orbit.
Source: TASS
