SpaceX: Falcon 9 rocket to return to flight next week

SpaceX could return its Falcon 9 rocket to flight as soon as next week, a mission that would close out Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's 2015 launch campaign.

CEO Elon Musk on Thursday said the company was "aiming" to test-fire a Falcon 9's main engines on Wednesday at Launch Complex 40, then launch "about three days later."

The potential Dec. 19 launch would be SpaceX's first since a Falcon 9 broke apart about two minutes into a June 28 launch of International Space Station cargo, a failure blamed so far on a strut in the rocket's upper-stage oxidizer tank.

Orbcomm Inc., whose 11 OG2 satellites will ride to low Earth orbit on the upcoming launch, said the liftoff would occur between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Orbcomm CEO Marc Eisenberg on Wednesday reported that the satellites were fueled, attached to their dispensers and waiting for SpaceX to confirm a launch date.

Also, on Thursday, Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES said its SES-9 communications satellite has arrived at Cape Canaveral, where it would be prepared for in mid-January to an orbit more than 22,000 miles above the equator.

SpaceX at one point had hoped to launch both the Orbcomm and SES missions before the end of the year.

Both missions will launch on an upgraded, slightly more powerful version of the Falcon 9 than the one that failed in June.

In addition to those flights, NASA recently said SpaceX's next launch of a Dragon capsule carrying ISS cargo was planned for no earlier than Jan. 8.

"We’re looking forward to having them whenever they’re ready to come to station," said Ven Feng, manager of NASA's ISS Transportation Integration Office, after Sunday's launch of an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft.

And across the country at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, work has resumed on a fourth mission that SpaceX could attempt to launch by next month.

SpaceX wants to land next booster at Cape Canaveral

The weather satellite mission called Jason-3, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with NASA and European partners, anticipates being ready to launch in mid-January on the older version of a Falcon 9.

A review of the rocket's readiness was completed earlier this week, NASA said.

The Orbcomm mission would be SpaceX's seventh launch of 2015, including the failure, and bring to 17 the total number of Cape Canaveral launches this year. United Launch Alliance launched 10 of its 12 missions from the Cape.

After the Orbcomm launch, SpaceX wants to try to land the Falcon 9 rocket's first-stage booster back at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the company's first attempt to return a booster to land rather than an ocean platform.

Musk did not say if the company has won approval for that experimental landing attempt, part of SpaceX's efforts to develop reusable rockets that could lower launch costs.

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 orjdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at@flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook atfacebook.com/jamesdeanspace.

SpaceX: Falcon 9 to return to flight within two months