A United Launch Alliance Atlas V-016 was moved back to her launch pad by the Atlantic Ocean here at Cape Canaveral AFS for its scheduled launch tomorrow night on a mission to deploy a military satellite.The 19-story tall Atlas rocket began its nearly 1,800-foot move to Launch Complex 41 this morning and was hard down on its pad at about 9:35 am EDT.
Liftoff is scheduled for Friday night at 8:31 pm EDT. The launch window extends until 9:33 pm. SpaceLaunchNews.com will have LIVE launch coverage of the Atlas flight beginning at 8:10 pm - tune in here!
Atlas will take into geostationary orbit the Wideband Global SATCOM - 2 communications satellite for the United States Air Force. WGS-02 will replace aging DSCS satellites and improve the way the air and ground military's navigate and communigate in one corner of the world. Eventually, about a dozen WGS satellites will be on orbit.
Launch was targeted for March 31st, however the launch was called off by the launch team so that a few more tests could be run on the recently replaced leaky fuel valve on the centaur upper stage.
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