CAPE CANAVERAL — A Delta IV Heavy rocket launch attempt from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was scrubbed Thursday due to several weather violations in the area.
United Launch Alliance will try again Saturday at 1:15 p.m. ET to boost a classified U.S. spy satellite into orbit.
The most powerful rocket available today is needed for a National Reconnaissance Office payload speculated to be a large eavesdropping satellite — in the range of 15,000 pounds — that will fly more than 22,000 miles above the equator.
Amateur spacecraft observers who have studied NRO missions believe this satellite, flying east from the Cape, is likely the seventh of a type called Mentor or Advanced Orion.
The launch will be the 32nd by a Delta IV rocket since its debut in 2002, but just the ninth by the heavy-lift version that first flew in 2004.
The NRO is the heavy-lift rocket’s most frequent customer, flying it now for the sixth time. The last Delta IV Heavy launched in late 2014, placing a prototype Orion crew capsule in orbit for NASA and Lockheed Martin on a $375 million test flight.
This mission is the NRO’s second of potentially four launching this year.
Follow James Dean and Emre Kelly on Twitter: @flatoday_jdean and @emrekelly
