Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

SpaceX still prepping for South Korean military satellite launch

By
Add as a preferred source on Google

After having to scrub its planned Starlink launch on Saturday, July 11, SpaceX has also scrapped its planned launch of a South Korean military satellite with its ANASIS-II mission.

A new launch date has not been set.

Recommended Videos

Over the weekend, SpaceX confirmed that it had completed a static fire test of its Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the launch. The static fire test consists of getting ground control, the launch pad, and the rocket ready as if it were for the real launch. The rocket is then loaded up with fuel and it briefly fires its engines for a few seconds. This allows the engineers to measure factors such as the pressure and the temperature and to check that everything is working as it should.

Static fire test complete – targeting July 14 for Falcon 9 launch of ANASIS-II from SLC-40 in Florida

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 11, 2020

With the static test fire complete, the company is ready to perform the real launch on Tuesday, June 14.

The Falcon 9 booster used in the ANASIS-II (Army/Navy/Air Force Satellite Information System 2) launch will be the same one that was recently used for SpaceX’s historic first crewed test flight of its new Crew Dragon capsule, carrying NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the International Space Station and marking the first time astronauts had been launched from U.S. soil since the ending of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.

The reusability of rocket boosters is a major innovation by SpaceX, and one way in which the company has distinguished itself and plans to make rocket launches more affordable.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off on May 30, for the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon capsule. flight
A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off on May 30, for the first crewed test flight of the Crew Dragon capsule. SpaceX

As the satellite being launched is a military satellite, not much is known about it. ANASIS-II was built by Airbus, is designed to provide secure communications, and that it is based on the Eurostar satellite platform. SpaceFlightNow reports that the satellite was formerly known as KMilSatCom 1 and was purchased by South Korea from Lockheed Martin, as part of an offset of the purchase of fighter jets, and was subcontracted to Airbus.

Watch the launch live

A new launch date has not been set yet, but SpaceX shares livestreams of its launches on its website, with coverage beginning 15 minutes before launch. We will update this story once a new launch date is set.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Former Space Writer
Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…
Topics
SpaceX Starship reaches orbit for the first time but its historic flight ends early
Starship reaches orbit for the first time and deploys 26 Starlink satellites before an early splashdown.
spacex-starship

After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180

Read more
Starship is finally going orbital, and SpaceX has picked September 22
Flight 14 is aiming for orbit, Starlink V3 deployment and a very long day in space.
Starship rocket.

SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.

Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver

Read more
Want a city on the Moon? Scientists say there’s not enough water
A billion tons still comes up short
Artist impression of activities in a Moon Base.

For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.

A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.

Read more