The United States plans to launch a rocket in March 2020 with a flight path running over Cuba, which will be the first of such since the 1960s, US specialized NASA Space Flight portal reported, citing SpaceX and the US Air Force
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th October, 2019) The United States plans to launch a rocket in March 2020 with a flight path running over Cuba, which will be the first of such since the 1960s, US specialized NASA Space Flight portal reported, citing SpaceX and the US Air Force.
In the 1960s, the United States launched rockets with satellites from the spaceport in the city of Cape Canaveral using the southern polar corridor to reach orbit. During a launch in November 1960, a malfunction caused the remnants of a Thor rocket's second stage to fall into Cuba. The situation provoked an international scandal and the Florida polar launch corridor was suspended.
To avoid such incidents, the United States shifted polar launch operations to the west coast, particularly, to the Vandenberg air force base in California, while the flight-path of the southern polar corridor was changed to cover a smaller part of the Cuban territory for episodic launches from Cape Canaveral until the late 1960s.
According to the news portal, in March 2020, the SpaceX company plans to launch the Argentine SAOCOM1B earth observation satellite from Cape Canaveral in the southern polar orbit launch corridor using a Falcon-9 carrier rocket. The rocket will fly over Cuba. The rocket will be equipped with an automatic system for its elimination in case of a deviation from the given flight-path.
There is no information on whether the United States and Cuba held consultations on this matter.
