SpaceX targeting Feb. 24 Falcon 9 launch of SES-9

SpaceX is targeting a Feb. 24 launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a European communications satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Luxembourg-based SES, the owner of the SES-9 satellite, on Monday announced the launch plans, which include a backup opportunity on Feb. 25. The launch window will open around 6:45 p.m.

The mission has been delayed since December while SpaceX readies an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 that will be launching for the second time.

"SpaceX is currently completing an extended series of testing and pre-flight validation in advance of the SES-9 launch," SES said in a statement.

The company said an adjustment to the mission profile would enable SES-9, which relies on slower electric propulsion, to get to its final orbit on schedule despite the launch delay.

The launch will be SpaceX's first from the Cape since Dec. 21, a mission remembered best for the booster's successful landing on shore.

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This mission will deliver the satellite to a much higher orbit, ultimately more than 22,000 miles above the equator. An attempt will be made to land the booster an "autonomous spaceport drone ship," a platform stationed down range in the Atlantic Ocean, according to SpaceX officials.

SpaceX hasn't landed a booster intact on a drone ship in three tries, but came tantalizingly close the last time, during January's launch from California of the Jason-3 ocean-monitoring mission. One of four landing legs broke, causing the rocket stage to fall over and explode.

"We did stick the landing," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said last week at a conference in Washington, D.C. "We stuck it, and then we unstuck it."

SpaceX's goal is to lower launch costs by recovering and reusing rockets.

The company successfully launched the SES-8 satellite in December 2013. It was the first Falcon 9 mission to put a satellite in geostationary orbit, where spacecraft match the rate of Earth's rotation, keeping them constantly positioned over the same spot on the planet.

In other launch updates, United Launch Alliance has confirmed plans to fly a National Reconnaissance Office mission from California at 6:39 a.m. EST Wednesday, aboard a Delta IV rocket.

The launch attempt comes just five days after ULA's Atlas V rocket delivered a Global Positioning System satellite to orbit from Cape Canaveral for the U.S. Air Force.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.