Two hotly anticipated launches planned for late 2023 — Vulcan Centaur V and SpaceX Falcon Heavy — have been delayed.
Vulcan Centaur V launch delayed
The debut flight of Vulcan Centaur V was scheduled for Dec. 24, Christmas Eve. United Launch Alliance announced in a Dec. 14 news release that while it conducted a “successful wet dress rehearsal,” the launch of the first Vulcan flight test and certification mission now is planned for Jan. 8, 2024, pending range approval, meaning there are no conflicting flight paths. A wet dress rehearsal is the last major test for a spacecraft before it's officially ready for flight.
If all goes as planned, Vulcan will launch from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying the first Peregrine lunar lander mission, ashes and DNA aboard the Celestis Memorial Spaceflights mission.
DNA from Presidents Washington, Eisenhower and Kennedy will fly. A donor bought their hair samples from the late Louis Mushro, the globally recognized broker of historical celebrity hair samples, and donated them to Celestis together with the provenance of each sample.
The participation of two other well-known passengers — the original "Star Trek" series creator Gene Rodenberry and cast member Nichelle Nichols, who portrayed the character Nyota Uhura — has been widely publicized.
The lunar lander is the primary cargo and is the first unmanned soft lunar landing mission since 1968, the final year of the Surveyor program.
Vulcan has seen delays before. It was supposed to launch in May, but was delayed after a Centaur upper stage exploded during testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center on March 29.
SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch delayed
SpaceX Falcon Heavy was meant to launch on Dec. 10, but SpaceX that night announced a scrub. It was rescheduled for Dec. 11, but cancelled again.
"Standing down from tonight's Falcon Heavy launch due to a ground side issue; vehicle and payload remain healthy,” the company published on X.
The launch has been rescheduled several times since, but problematic weather has been named as a definitive factor each time, so the launch has yet to happen. SpaceX now is targeting Dec. 15 for launch.
When it does happen, the mission will be Falcon Heavy's first time as the launch vehicle for the X-37B, an unmanned aircraft designed to test technologies in space for the U.S. Air Force. Previous X-37B missions used rockets such as the McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7920 and the Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 (later made by United Launch Alliance).
The Boeing X-37B aircraft looks similar to past space shuttles, but with a smaller wingspan of less than 15 feet. Its activities are largely unknown, and it has been popularly dubbed a spy plane, though the Department of Defense never has confirmed whether it's used for surveillance.
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