Delta IV Date

The Air Force's fifth Wideband Global SATCOM satellite will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, on May 8, service officials announced today -- four months later than originally scheduled. The launch will mark the first use of a Delta IV rocket since a flawed launch on Oct. 4, 2012, during which the Delta IV boosting a Global Positioning System IIF satellite into orbit suffered a fuel leak. That problematic launch, although ultimately successful, led the Air Force and the United Launch Alliance to conduct dual investigations and prompted the service to impose a launch freeze, pushing back WGS-5's blastoff date.

The Space and Missile Systems Center said in a press release today that the investigation "into the off-nominal performance on the Global Positioning System IIF-3 launch last October is still progressing. Final testing related to the investigation is under way. ULA, Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne, and the Air Force have been working closely on this investigation and have approved processing this mission toward the May 8 launch date."

Launch officials have planned investigation closure reviews in mid-April, the release states.

WGS-5 is already out of storage and was sent to Cape Canaveral early this month, Boeing announced on March 12. Boeing is the lead contractor on the the WGS constellation, as well as on all GPS IIF satellites.