SpaceX's Falcon 9 satellite launch delayed yet again; new launch targeted for February 1

SpaceX has delayed the launch of its Falcon 9 rocket for the fourth consecutive day and will now liftoff on February 1. The launch was previously targeted for January 31 but got scrubbed due to a ship entering the hazard area near the launch site at Cape Canaveral in Florida, as per SpaceX's latest update. For this mission, Falcon 9 is mounted with the Italy-made COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation (CSG-2) FM2 satellite, which is an Earth-observation satellite.

"Standing down from today's launch of COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 due to ship in the hazard area; team is setting up for next opportunity tomorrow, January 31 at 6:11 p.m. EST", SpaceX wrote in its tweet. 

Four delays in four days

The recent delay marked the fourth consecutive one, however, the reason for the latest postponement varied from the previous ones. SpaceX had first scheduled the launch on January 28, however, which got postponed for the next three days owing to bad weather conditions. Before the ship entering the hazard area, the company was just steps away from launch as the weather had turned 90% favourable on January 31, as opposed to just 60% before the first scheduled date. 

Backed by the Italian Space Agency, the CSG-2 program, under which the satellite has been developed, is also funded by Italy's Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Education, Universities and Scientific Research and the satellites designed under this program observe Earth using a technology called the synthetic aperture radar (SAR). The European Space Agency had written in the program's description as per Space.com-

COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation['s] purpose is to monitor the Earth for the sake of emergency prevention, strategy, scientific and commercial purposes, providing data on a global scale to support a variety of applications.

Meanwhile, the launch is now targeted for February 1 at 4:41 am (IST) and interested ones can watch the liftoff live at SpaceX's official YouTube channel and Twitter handle starting 15 minutes before the launch.