The time was right, but the weather did not cooperate Monday as SpaceX had lined up a predawn launch that could have offered viewers another serving of space jellyfish. But the company will try again Tuesday.<\/p>\n
SpaceX\u2019s launch last week created the effect<\/a> of the expanding nebula that was seen among clear skies all the way up to Washington, D.C. Closer to the launch site in Florida, the massive post-launch cloud formation was among the most impressive ever seen, said local photographers.<\/p>\n Could it happen again?<\/p>\n Well a Falcon 9 on the Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission, carrying 32 payloads, is now targeting liftoff at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, which is still just under an hour before the 7:26 a.m. sunrise, although the rocket has a one-hour launch window.<\/p>\n After lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station\u2019s Space Launch Complex, the exhaust from the rocket could once again capture the light of the sun in the upper atmosphere creating the jellyfish effect.<\/p>\n Weather was already a factor that took Monday\u2019s planned attempt off the board.<\/p>\n \u201cNow targeting no earlier than Tuesday, October 20 for Falcon 9\u2019s launch of the Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission from Florida due to unfavorable recovery weather conditions,\u201d the company posted early Monday morning. Wind had also been a concern at the launch site, with Space Launch Delta 45\u2019s weather squadron having only forecast a 55% chance for good conditions.<\/p>\n With Tuesday\u2019s attempt. that improves to 15% chance for good conditions at the launch site, although there is still a moderate concern for weather conditions for the rocket booster recovery attempt downrange.<\/p>\n The first-stage booster for this mission is making its 19th trip to space and will aim for a landing on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas stationed in the Atlantic.<\/p>\n This would be the 60th launch from all providers in 2026 from the Space Coast with SpaceX having flown all but seven of those. SpaceX, though, has dialed back its Florida-based launch plans<\/a> \u2014 which led to a record 109 launches from all providers in 2025 \u2014 as it focuses on building up its Starship and Super Heavy launch tower<\/a> at Kennedy Space Center\u2019s Launch Complex 39-A.<\/p>\n What had been pacing to be a launch every three days last year has been a rarity in the last two months. SpaceX has only flown four other times since Aug. 30<\/a>, and the other launch providers have yet to announce new targets for their return to flight.<\/p>\n United Launch Alliance is still trying to return to the launch pad before the end of the year with its Vulcan rocket working through issues<\/a> seen on its last flight earlier this year. ULA\u2019s Atlas V, though, could beat Vulcan, which has only flown four times, as Boeing\u2019s Starliner might be ready to fly<\/a> as early as this December for an uncrewed mission to the space station, according to NASA. ULA last flew on July 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n Blue Origin, meanwhile, flew its New Glenn rocket successfully once this year, but the launch pad at Canaveral\u2019s Launch Complex 36 was heavily damaged from a massive explosion<\/a> during a rocket test hot fire back in May, so Jeff Bezos\u2019 company has been in rebuild mode<\/a> trying to get back to flight readiness at LC-36 before the end of the year. The lone New Glenn flight this year<\/a> was on April 19.<\/p>\n NASA flew the other launch with the flight of its Space Launch System rocket topped with the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis II lunar flyby mission taking off from KSC\u2019s LC-39B on April 1<\/a>. SLS won\u2019t fly again until at least mid 2027 for Artemis III<\/a>, although NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman is slated to update that mission\u2019s progress in a press conference from KSC this Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The time was right, but the weather did not cooperate Monday as SpaceX had lined up a predawn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,114,115,139,141,140,554,109,76686,1769],"class_list":["post-431954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-business","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-science","tag-social","tag-social-business","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}