About five weeks ago, SpaceX launched the PAZ radar imagery satellite from its California-based site at Vandenberg Air Force Base. A few minutes after the launch, once the Falcon 9 rocket had pushed the satellite into outer space, the protective fairing around it separated. Typically these payload fairings, valued at about $6 million, are lost after falling back to Earth, where they sink in the ocean.

Not only does this cost money, of course, but the construction of new payload fairings takes up valuable real estate and workforce attention at SpaceX's factory in Hawthorne, California. Several large rooms are given over to the task. So in recent years the company has tested options for safely returning the payload fairings to the ocean and then "catching" them with a boat.

With the PAZ launch, the company tried this for the first time. The payload fairing returns through Earth's atmosphere at a very high velocity, about eight times the speed of sound. To account for this, SpaceX installed on-board thrusters and a guidance system to help steer it through the atmosphere. Near the surface, a parafoil would deploy to help arrest its descent, potentially allowing the fairing to be captured in a ship modified for this task—Mr. Steven.

Alas, they missed. According to the company's founder, Elon Musk, SpaceX's attempt in February to catch a fairing, "Missed by a few hundred meters, but fairing landed intact in water. Should be able to catch it with slightly bigger chutes to slow down descent." He also indicated the next attempt would come in about a month.

This attempt will come on Friday morning, when SpaceX is scheduled to launch 10 communications satellites for Iridium from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a used Falcon 9 booster. Mr. Steven has been dispatched down range of the launch site.

The instantaneous launch window for the Iridium-5 mission will open at 7:13am PT (14:13 UTC), and the webcast below should begin about 15 minutes before that time. It is unlikely the fairing recovery attempt will be shown in real time, unfortunately.