Scrub! SpaceX crews have stood down from an early-morning Wednesday attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
Why? In an 11:31 p.m. EST Tuesday tweet, SpaceX officials announced they were standing down “due to off-nominal methane temperatures prior to stepping into methane load.”
The new target liftoff time is 1:05 a.m. Thursday. Odysseus, the private company’s moon lander, will launch via NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative and Artemis campaign.
After stage separation, the Falcon 9 first-stage booster will target landing at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station — triggering sonic booms on the Space Coast.
The Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron pegs the odds of “go for launch” weather at 90% for the new Thursday target time. Thick cloud layers are the primary concern, along with a low-to-moderate risk of upper-level wind shear.
For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, visit floridatoday.com/space.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY (for more of his stories, click here.) Contact Neale at 321-242-3638 or rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
