Glitches again scrub SpaceX rocket launch

James Dean | Florida Today

MELBOURNE, Fla. -- SpaceX hopes a Falcon 9 rocket is ready for a third launch attempt within a few days after coming within one second of a Thanksgiving Day blastoff from Cape Canaveral.

The rocket's nine first-stage engines fired at 5:39 p.m. EST Thursday, but shut down when computers sensed their thrust was building up too slowly.

The countdown was restarted in an effort to get off the ground before the launch window closed at 6:44 p.m., but engineers ran out of time to analyze data from the engine cutoff and called off the attempt with a minute left.

"Better to be paranoid and wrong," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted.

Musk said the rocket would return to its hangar for engine inspections at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40.

No new launch date was immediately set for the rocket, which carries a communications satellite owned by Luxembourg-based SES.

An attempt on Monday was scrubbed because of fluctuating pressures in the rocket booster's liquid oxygen tank, SpaceX said.

SpaceX is trying to launch an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 that has flown only once before, on a September test flight from California.

This mission would be the company's first of a commercial satellite, after several successful deliveries of cargo to the International Space Station launched by the original Falcon 9.