need to wait at least another day to witness the return of SpaceX’s formidable Falcon Heavy rocket to the sky.

On Monday, December 11, the muscular Falcon Heavy was supposed to lift off USSF-52, the robotic X-37B spacecraft operated by the U.S. Space Force, from Florida. However, SpaceX declared a scrub around thirty minutes prior to the scheduled launch time of 8:24 p.m. EST (0124 GMT).

Due to a groundside problem, the Falcon Heavy launch this evening has been aborted; the vehicle and payload are unharmed. Through X (previously known as Twitter), SpaceX tweeted, “Team is resetting for the next launch opportunity of the USSF-52 mission, which is no earlier than tomorrow night.”
Watch the USSF-52 launch live at Space.com, thanks to SpaceX.
The reusable 29-foot-long (8.8-meter) X-37B, which is largely used as a testbed for new instruments and other technologies, will launch for the seventh time on USSF-52, according to military authorities. The majority of X-37B mission payloads and other specifics remain classified.

The first five X-37B flights took off atop Atlas V rockets from United Launch Alliance. The most current one took off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 and landed in November 2022 after spending 908 days in orbit.

The first X-37B mission to fly atop a Falcon Heavy, which has the capability to launch the spacecraft higher than it has previously been, will be USSF-52. And that might very well occur; according to a press statement issued by Space Force officials last month, the upcoming mission’s objectives “include operating in new orbital regimes, experimenting with space domain awareness technologies and investigating the radiation effects to NASA materials.”

According to the statement, the NASA radiation experiment will subject plant seedlings to the hostile conditions of space travel.
In a much awaited test flight that launched SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk’s red Tesla Roadster into solar orbit, the Falcon Heavy made its premiere in February 2018.

Eight flights have been made by the heavy lifter so far, four of which have been this year. When the rocket launched NASA’s Psyche asteroid mission in October of this year, it made its most recent flight.

Due to weather concerns, SpaceX postponed the X-37B Falcon Heavy launch from its scheduled date of Sunday, December 10, by one day.