CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – Following the scrub of rocket maker United Launch Alliance (ULA) mighty Atlas V 551 rocket carrying Amazon’s second Project Kuiper mission, Kuiper 2, the team decided to rollback the rocket to the VIF processing hangar for evaluation and repairs.
Enjoy my video (above) from my remote camera capturing the pretty cool rollback of ULA Atlas V 551 rocket after the launch scrub of the Amazon Kuiper 2 mission on June 16, 2025 at Space Launch Complex 41, CCSFS – as it rolled off the pad pulled by a Track Mobile on the way to the VIF to fix the booster engine issue that caused a high temperature issue in the RD-180 compartment.
Launch retargeted to June 23 at 654 AM ET. Still images – NO sound. Credit: Ken Kremer / Space UpClose
Video:
Caption: Remote camera captured the pretty cool rollback of ULA Atlas V 551 rocket after the launch scrub of the Amazon Kuiper 2 mission on June 16, 2025 at Space Launch Complex 41, CCSFS – as it rolled off the pad pulled by a Track Mobile on the way to the VIF to fix the booster engine issue that caused a high temperature issue. Launch retargeted to June 23 at 654 AM ET. Still images – NO sound. Credit: Ken Kremer / Space UpClose
The scrub was called barely 30 minutes before the scheduled liftoff at 1:29 pm ET due to an elevated purge temperature with the RD-180 booster engine seen in engineering observations in the final stages of the countdown on Monday, June 16.
Otherwise the weather was picture perfect as ULA was targeting launch of Kuiper 2 broadband internet satellites on the most powerful version of their venerable Atlas V rocket nicknamed “The Bruiser” from Space Launch Complex-41 at 1:25 p.m. EDT.
At that time ULA did not set a new launch date while considering options of how to proceed.
The Atlas V was nearing completion of fueling with propellant into the first and second stage.
You can watch Live broadcast coverage of launch available at: www.ulalaunch.com
The Kuiper 2 launch broadcast will begin at 6:340ap.m. EDT
Today’s forecast shows a 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for launch.
Launch Forecast Summary:
Overall probability of violating weather constraints: 20%
Primary concerns: Cumulus Cloud Rule
Overall probability of violating weather constraints for 24-hour delay: 10%
Primary concern: Cumulus Cloud Rule
Ken Kremer interview about Kuiper 2
WFTV ABC Orlando June 23/24
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