CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – Rocket maker United Launch Alliance (ULA) has repaired the booster engine issue in their mighty Atlas V 551 rocket that scrubbed the first attempt to launch Amazon’s second Project Kuiper mission caused by a rare high temperature issue in the RD-180 engine compartment.
Launch of Atlas V Kuiper 2 mission is now retargeted to June 23 at 6:54 a.m. ET from Space Launch Complex-41.
ULA engineers decided to rollout the Atlas V rocket back to pad 41 from the VIF processing hangar for evaluation and repairs.
Enjoy my video (below) 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.
Video: https://youtu.be/4mBLAPd5ai8
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.
The current forecast shows an 80 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for launch.
Atlas V Kuiper 2 mission information available here.
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
June 23/24 WFTV ABC Orlando: interview about ULA Amazon Kuiper 2 launch and mission
Ken Kremer of Space UpClose interviews about ULA Atlas V Kuiper 2 mission on WFTV ABC News Orlando. Screenshot: Ken Kremer / SpaceUpClose.com
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