Bad weather has caused engineers at the Chinese Space Center in Taiyuan to delay the planned launch of the
next-to-last Iridium satellite mission until Friday May 1st. Space
officials were planning to launch the Long March 2C/SD variant Wednesday
afternoon, but weather conditions deteriorated throughout the day, forcing the postponement.
Officials at the China Great Wall Industry Corp. set the Friday lift-off
time at 5:22 pm Beijing time, or 5:22 am EDT. The launch marks the 14th in
11 months for the Iridium Corporation, and will see a pair of satellites
marking 63 of a planned 66 in the spacecraft's six orbital planes. One last
remaining Delta II is due aloft from the Air Force Spaceport at Vandenberg
Air Base in California next week, completing the constellation.
Iridium will begin offering commercial mobile communications services this
September, if the final launches are successful. Thus far, there have been
no launch failures in the Iridium program of using Long March, Delta, and
Proton space boosters. Iridium Vice-Chairman and CEO Edward F. Staiano said
Tuesday in Washington the corporation was pleased with their launch service
providers. "But after as many years in the space business as I have, you
worry about every launch," Staiano said.
