California, October 1: The launch of SpaceX's Delta 4-Heavy, which was scheduled for Thursday at 9:17 am ET, was halted due to a technical issue. The SpaceX in a statement said, "Standing down from today's Starlink mission due to an out of family ground system sensor reading; will announce a new target launch date once confirmed on the Range."

The spacecraft manufacturing company is yet to announce the new date of the launch. According to reports, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) stopped the launch seconds before takeoff. NROL-44 is the payload of the rocket. Now, the Delta 4-Heavy is scheduled to lift off on Tuesday at 11:54 pm ET. The rocket will take off from ULA's launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. SpaceX Postpones Launch of Starlink Project Due to Inclement Weather; Next Launch Scheduled to Take Place on September 1.

Tweet by SpaceX:

Earlier, on August 29, SpaceX postponed the launch of the Starlink project due to inclement weather during pre-flight operations. The launch was then scheduled for September 1. But later it was found that a piece of ground equipment had failed. It took a few weeks to fix the issue. NASA Picks SpaceX for $109.4 Million Launch Services of IMAP Mission.

Notably, NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the agency's Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission which will help researchers better understand the boundary of the heliosphere, a magnetic barrier surrounding our solar system.

The total cost to launch IMAP and the secondary payloads will be approximately $109.4 million, which includes the launch service and other mission-related costs, NASA said.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 01, 2020 08:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).