NEW YORK: SpaceX Tesla chief executive Elon Musk’s private space company must wait until at least Saturday for a test of a potentially groundbreaking reusable rocket.
SpaceX, as the privately owned company is known, had planned to launch the rocket on Tuesday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. But less than two minutes before liftoff, a computer detected a problem in the system that steers the rocket’s upper-stage engine. That motor positions the Dragon cargo ship into the right orbit to rendezvous and dock with the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 260 miles (418 km) above Earth.
One of two actuators in the upper-stage motor was “behaving strangely,” SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, wrote in a post on Twitter after the launch scrub. Liftoff was retargeted for Friday, but on Wednesday SpaceX determined that it needed another day to prepare, NASA said in a statement.
SpaceX declined to provide any more details.
NASA, which is paying SpaceX $1.6 billion for 12 station resupply runs, said launch is now scheduled for 4:47 a.m. EST (0947 GMT) on Saturday.
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