SpaceX finished another successful International Space Station (ISS) resupply mission, but had to again nix the launch of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite.
According to the Associated Press, ISS crewmembers were overdue for a restocking since Orbital Science's unmanned spacecraft exploded in Oct. After leaving the ISS Tuesday, the Dragon capsule parachuted its way back to Earth, landing in the Pacific Ocean off the western coast of Mexico's Baja Peninsula.
Just an hour-and-a-half earlier at the Cape Canaveral, Fla. Air Force base, SpaceX had to cancel the launch of the NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite. Al Gore initially proposed the probe when he was vice president to Bill Clinton and the satellite has been waiting 17 years to be put into orbit.
The launch was originally planned for Sunday, but has been put off every day since due to various setbacks, CBS News reported. Tuesday's cancellation was because of high winds that could have threatened the rocket's maneuverability.
"What this satellite will make it possible to do is to measure not only the energy coming into the Earth from the sun, which we can measure today, but we can also now for the first time measure the energy reflected back into space from the Earth," Gore said at a press conference Sunday. "You subtract that second number from the first number, that's the problem we've got to solve. Because the amount of energy that's being trapped in the atmosphere, it is growing. That's why the ice is melting and the sea level is rising in Miami Beach and a lot of other places."