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SpaceX still prepping for South Korean military satellite launch

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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.

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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. 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.

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Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
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