SpaceX ran through countdown and fueling procedures with a Falcon 9 rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, culminating in ignition of the booster’s nine first stage Merlin engines in a customary check of the launcher’s readiness before liftoff Thursday with a Dragon supply ship for the International Space Station.
The two-stage rocket was lifted vertical at pad 39A before dawn Sunday, and SpaceX’s launch team loaded the Falcon 9 with super-chilled kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants before the launcher’s nine Merlin 1D engines ignited for more than three seconds at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT).
The static fire test is a customary milestone in SpaceX launch campaigns, used as a rehearsal for launch day and a check of the readiness of the Falcon 9 for liftoff.
SpaceX will lower the Falcon 9 rocket horizontal and return it to a hangar a quarter-mile away at the southern edge of the historic launch complex, where ground crews will mate a Dragon supply ship to the launcher.
The unpiloted Dragon spacecraft is already filled with most of its cargo load, which includes nearly 6,000 pounds of supplies and equipment for the space station.
The Dragon spacecraft’s payload manifest includes a NASA experiment to study quick-spinning neutron stars, collapsed super-dense stellar remnants left behind by supernova explosions. Other items to be delivered by SpaceX include rodents that scientists will use to help study medical remedies for bone loss and osteoporosis, an experimental new solar array that could be employed on future satellites, and an Earth-observing camera platform
Thursday’s blastoff, set for 5:55 p.m. EDT (2155 GMT), will be the first time SpaceX has reused a Dragon spacecraft’s pressurized compartment. The rear trunk segment, designed to accommodate large external cargo modules, is new because it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere at the end of each mission.
Repairs to neighboring Complex 40 are on track to allow launches to resume there in a few months, giving SpaceX two operational launch pads in Florida. Pad 39A will be taken offline for a few months later this year to finish upgrades for launches of Falcon Heavy rockets, SpaceX’s huge triple-core launcher set to debut before the end of 2017.
Thursday’s launch will be the 100th space mission to blast off from pad 39A since Saturn 5 moon rockets began test flights there in November 1967.
SpaceX plans to attempt a landing of the Falcon 9 first stage at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station following Thursday’s launch.
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