SpaceX targeting Sunday Falcon 9 launch from KSC for its third mission in nine days

Just nine days after SpaceX's bicoastal accomplishment last weekend, the company is again aiming to vault a Falcon 9 rocket paired with a commercial communications satellite from Kennedy Space Center, this time on Sunday.

SpaceX's third mission in nine days, targeted for a 59-minute launch window that opens at 7:35 p.m., will take an Intelsat communications satellite to a geostationary orbit from KSC's pad 39A. This mission involves an expendable Falcon 9 – a first stage landing will not be attempted due to fuel constraints, so no landing legs will be installed on the booster.

A check of the rocket's nine Merlin main engines, known as a static test fire, is scheduled to take place at pad 39A starting at 4 p.m. Thursday. The window for the test closes at midnight. A forecast from the Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron is also expected Thursday.

The Hawthorne, California-based company achieved a major milestone last weekend when it broke its own record for flight-to-flight time, launching from both coasts and landing on drone ships stationed in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

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Last Friday, a previously flown Falcon 9 lifted Bulgaria's first geostationary communications satellite, BulgariaSat-1, to orbit from KSC and softly landed on the "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship. Just two days later on Sunday, a new Falcon 9 packed with 10 satellites for communications company Iridium leapt off the pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, later landing on the West Coast drone ship named "Just Read The Instructions."

SpaceX operates independent launch teams on both coasts, but thanks to remote access, personnel can support missions without having to travel. The team in California was on console to support Friday's launch from KSC, and the reverse was true for Sunday's launch from Vandenberg.

Just halfway into the year, SpaceX has overseen nine successful missions, already topping its 2016 total of eight.

United Launch Alliance, meanwhile, is targeting August 3 for the launch of an Atlas V rocket with NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, known as TDRS-M, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 41. The spacecraft arrived in Titusville last Friday.

Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com or 321-242-3715. Follow him on Twitter at @EmreKelly and on Facebook at Emre Kelly.