Scott Powers
Cape Canaveral’s launch manifest is filling fast for this summer with announcements of two more launches, including of one using America’s most powerful rocket, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy.
ULA announced it will launch a Delta IV Heavy rocket, the world’s most powerful space vehicle now in use, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on June 4.
And NASA announced that a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will be launched from Cape Canaveral AFS July 16 to carry the next load of supplies to the International Space Station, packed into a SpaceX Dragon capsule.
Those two launch announcements came with a week of two others: SpaceX’s launch of a Thaicomm communications satellite atop a Falcon 9, set for a 5:40 p.m. blastoff from Cape Canaveral AFS Thursday; and NASA’s launch of the deep-space traveling asteroid probe OSIRIS-REx, atop a ULA Atlas V rocket, from Cape Canaveral AFS on Sept. 8.
The Delta IV Heavy rocket will carry a satellite into orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, which means the craft and its purpose are top secret. No details are being released about it.
The June 4 launch will be the first launch of a Delta IV Heavy since NASA used one to test-fly its deep-space astronaut capsule Orion in December 2014. The Delta IV Heavy is a configuration of the standard Delta IV with two liquid-fuel rocket boosters strapped to the rocket.
The July 16 Falcon 9 launch will be the ninth mission by SpaceX under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract, to deliver food, supplies and equipment to the space station.
The cargo will include the first of two international docking adapters, which will allow Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft to dock with the station when transporting astronauts in the near future as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
