SpaceX postponed Sunday’s scheduled Falcon 9 launch of Amazon’s KF-02 satellite mission due to adverse conditions impacting booster recovery operations.
“Due to unfavorable recovery weather conditions, Falcon 9’s launch of the KF-02 mission is now targeted for tomorrow, August 11,” SpaceX wrote on X.
Both the rocket and its payload, 24 satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation, remain fully operational.
The revised 27-minute launch window opens at 8:35 a.m. US Eastern Time (12:35 GMT) on Monday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. Amazon corroborated that maritime conditions complicating the retrieval of the rocket’s first stage necessitated the rescheduling, whilst reiterating the spacecraft’s readiness.
This mission marks the inaugural flight for this specific Falcon 9 first-stage booster. Following stage separation approximately three minutes after liftoff, SpaceX will attempt to land the reusable component on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, stationed hundreds of kilometers offshore in the Atlantic Ocean, a manoeuvre critical to the company’s cost-efficient launch model.
The recovery operation’s sensitivity to sea states and wind speeds directly influenced Sunday’s weather-related postponement.
Project Kuiper, Amazon’s ambitious $10 billion initiative, aims to deploy an initial constellation of 3,232 satellites in low Earth orbit (590–630 km altitude) to provide high-speed, low-latency internet globally, particularly targeting unserved and remote communities.
