SpaceX targets Sunday launch; will try booster landing

James Dean | Florida Today

CAPE CANAVERAL — SpaceX is targeting a 6:10 p.m. ET launch on Sunday of the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, NASA confirmed Friday.

The mission is a collaboration between NASA, the Air Force and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

After launch, SpaceX again will try to land the Falcon 9 rocket booster an ocean platform. The first try last month resulted in the rocket hitting the "autonomous spaceport drone ship" with a fiery crash that did not cause extensive damage.

Though it hasn't landed a booster successfully yet, SpaceX last week released a concept video showing all three boosters from a Falcon Heavy rocket, which has not yet launched, flying back to a landing pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

SpaceX last week also revealed a picture of the Dragon capsule it will use to test a key system needed for future human missions to the International Space Station, targeted for 2017.

The "pad abort" test, planned within a month or two, will fire SuperDraco thrusters that a Dragon carrying people would use to escape a failing rocket.

"We think it gives incredible safety features for a full abort all the way through ascent," SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said last week.

Raw: SpaceX releases video of crash landing SpaceX has released dramatic footage of its booster rocket trying to land on a floating barge in the Atlantic, an unprecedented attempt that ended in a fiery explosion. (Jan. 16)

Assuming crews launch safely, SpaceX hopes to use the abort thrusters to steer Dragons to landings on land. But Shotwell confirmed last week that initial landings would be in water, assisted by parachutes.

She said the pad abort test from Launch Complex 40 was expected "in the next month or so."

"It took us quite a while to get there, but there's a lot of great technology and innovation in that pad abort vehicle," she said.