CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — After a number of delays, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V 551 rocket launch was finally able to launch during the early hours of Tuesday morning.
What You Need To Know
- Tuesday's launch was pushed back due to winds
- Before that, a leak was discovered and repaired, but team will need more time to check fuel integrity
- Scroll down to re-watch the launch
- Launch schedule
At 5:19 a.m. EST, the Atlas V went into the great beyond, but there were a few bumps before getting there.
The launch, which is carrying the Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) mission for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC), had been pushed back to Monday at 4:04 a.m. due to a leak found in the ground storage system.
The leak was repaired, but on Sunday afternoon, ULA said the launch would be delayed to Tuesday at 4:04 a.m. to give the team more time to "verify the sample integrity of the fuel prior to tanking operations."
However, come Tuesday morning, the launch was pushed back a few times due to upper-level winds, but eventually, they died down according to a weather balloon and it was a green for ULA.
Upper level winds are green! The latest weather balloon has determined winds are within limits to enable liftoff of the Atlas V rocket. Live launch blog and webcast: https://t.co/LEV7vitjDL pic.twitter.com/dj3mX7nnUw
— ULA (@ulalaunch) December 7, 2021
The launch is part of a busy December on the Space Coast.
The lion’s share of the launches this December will be conducted by SpaceX, which started with Thursday’s Falcon 9 rocket launch.
Also coming up: The IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) mission is scheduled to launch at 1 a.m. EST on Dec. 9 from Launch Complex 39A at KSC aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
Two more Falcon 9 rockets are also scheduled to take off this month. NASA and SpaceX are targeting Dec. 21, at 5:06 a.m. EST for the launch of the 24th Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-24) mission to the International Space Station.
And as a bookend to the start of the year, one of the last SpaceX launches in 2021 will be the launch of the Turksat 5B satellite. SpaceX launched Turksat 5A back on Jan. 7, which was the first launch of the calendar year. A definitive date on the Turksat B launch hasn’t been announced, but it is expected to launch from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.