SpaceX postpones rocket launch due to technical glitch

Space Exploration Technologies postponed Friday’s planned launch of a Falcon 9 rocket, which is slated to put six small satellites into orbit for Orbcomm Inc, which provides machine-to-machine communication services. Engineers detected a possible problem with its upper-stage engine. The next launch window opens at 5:46 p.m. EDT (2146 GMT) on Saturday.

Clock just running out of time to give the team enough minutes to evaluate the data we’ve been looking at for the last hour.

Falcon 9 product director John Insprucker

The launch, which would be SpaceX’s 10th Falcon 9 mission, is intended to put six of Orbcomm’s 17 next-generation satellites into orbits about 500 miles (800 km) above Earth. The new satellites, built by privately owned Sierra Nevada Corp and Boeing Co, will join Orbcomm’s existing 25-member network. Each satellite in the $200 million, 17-member Orbcomm Generation 2, or OG2, constellation has more capacity than the entire existing constellation. In addition to longer messages between, for example, retailers and their shipping containers or construction companies and their cranes, OG2 will plug holes in the current system, making the network faster.

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