Historic Space Launch Day Includes Troubled Lockheed GPS Satellite
- Air Force accepted higher risk on $529 million GPS satellite
- Launches by Bezos’s Blue Origin, Arianespace also delayed
Source: SpaceX
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As technical issues and poor weather canceled plans for a historic day of space launches, Lockheed Martin Corp. rescheduled the deployment of a next-generation Global Positioning System satellite for Wednesday, even though congressional investigators say it has suspect capacitors that could undermine its mission.
The GPS-III satellite scheduled to be sent into orbit by Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the first of a new wave of spacecraft that promise greater accuracy and stronger signals to help guide everything from ride-sharing services to missiles.