Elon Musk’s SpaceX Aborts Friday’s Falcon 9 Launch from Vandenberg Seconds Before Liftoff

[Update: Sat., May 20, 2023, 10:40 a.m.] A day after scrubbing its launch just seconds before liftoff, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket early Saturday morning from Vandenberg Space Force Base and deployed a total of 21 satellites, including OneWeb’s technology demonstration satellite JoeySat. For the latest story, click here.

[Original Story] With its Falcon 9 rocket enveloped in a thick layer of fog early Friday morning, SpaceX aborted its 6:19 a.m. launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in northern Santa Barbara County with just 55 seconds left until liftoff. “Launch abort has started,” a voice announces on SpaceX’s live video stream of the scrubbed launch five seconds into rocket startup. Another attempt at the launch is scheduled for early tomorrow morning.

If the mission is successful, the rocket will deliver a total of 21 satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO) — five belonging to Iridium and 16 to OneWeb, according to SpaceX’s mission description. Its first stage booster will return to Earth, landing roughly nine minutes after liftoff on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship. Stationed in the Pacific Ocean, the droneship was named by SpaceX’s controversy-courting founder Elon Musk in honor of legendary Scottish sci-fi author Iain M. Banks, whose novel The Player of Games features a sentient starship of the same name.