Falcon 9 launch announced for Thursday morning from Vandenberg Space Force Base
VANDENBERG SPACE FORCE BASE, Calif. – SpaceX has announced a Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base starting at 7:25 a.m. on Apr. 11, 2024.
A back up ten-minute launch window was announced for Friday, Apr. 12, beginning at 7:25 a.m.
The Falcon 9 booster will assist in the launch of USSF-62, a Space Systems Command weather system addition developed at Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colorado and destined for low-Earth orbit detail Space Systems Command in a press release about the mission.
Ball Aerospace was acquired by BAE Systems in February of this year.
The Weather System Follow-on Microwave (WSF-M) space vehicle is shown below.
"We’re absolutely thrilled be out here on the Central Coast, with a superb team primed and ready to launch the USSF-62 satellite. It has an important mission ahead of it and we’re excited for flight-proven Falcon 9 to deliver the satellite to orbit. And on this mission, we’re using a first-stage booster whose history is purely commercial, having launched two Starlink missions, in additional to a flight-proven fairings, which is a first for a National Space Security Launch," said Colonel Jim Horne, senior materiel leader for Space Systems Commands’s Launch Execution Delta. "With each national security launch, we add to America’s capabilities and improve its deterrence in the face of growing threats."
A live webcast of the launch will begin about 15 minutes before liftoff at SpaceX's X (the website formerly known as twitter) account.
This will be the third mission for the Falcon 9 first stage booster which previously launched two Starlink satellite missions detail SpaceX.
