Station cargo flight leapfrogs commercial satellite launch on SpaceX manifest

SpaceX said Sunday that the first Falcon 9 rocket launch from pad 39A, a former shuttle-era complex at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is scheduled to send a Dragon supply ship to the International Space Station in mid-February, deferring a mission with an EchoStar communications satellite that was set to take off this month. Ground crews have been readying the seaside launch pad for Falcon 9 flights around-the-clock in recent weeks, and a new rocket transporter was observed vertical at the pad the past several days. The launch targeted for mid-February will carry several tons of supplies and experiments to the space station, including a new instrument to study the ozone layer in Earth’s atmosphere from a mounting position outside the orbiting research complex. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 31)