The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) has noted that it was responsible for the scrub of a SpaceX launch at the Vandenberg Space Force Base on Tuesday.
SpaceX was gearing up to launch TRACERS, NASA’s latest mission to study solar wind and how it impacts Earth, with liftoff set to occur at SLC-4E at Vandenberg, with the booster also targeting a return to launch site landing at the launch site.
On Tuesday, all appeared to be going well in the final seconds of the countdown. As per usual, the Launch Director can normally be heard on the communication loop at T-45 seconds saying “Go for launch”.
This time, however, we heard the “Hold Hold Hold” call. This call tells all operators in mission control that the count is being paused, and in the case of Falcon 9, they can no longer launch that day, resulting in a scrub.
It was quickly noted on the official stream that the reason for the Hold was “FAA airspace concerns”, which is not totally uncommon, as the Range can go red when a vehicle, such as a boat or plane, enters the downrange exclusion zone.
Notably, this time, this was not the reason. The FAA confirmed that the airspace concerns were not any specific aircraft, but rather the Air Traffic Control Center monitoring those aircraft.
An ARTCC isn’t like a control tower at an airport; it’s what is called a Center, which is responsible for a huge area of airspace, called a Flight Information Region (or FIR).
In particular, the LA ARTCC is responsible for the KZLA FIR, which, in addition to parts of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, covers the airspace of Southern California – the location of Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Due to a “regional power outage” in the Santa Barbara area, the LA ARTCC was suffering from some communications problems. Therefore, it probably could not verify, or perhaps could not tell SpaceX, whether the range of Green or not.
As such, SpaceX had no option but to scrub the launch due to the Range being in an unacceptable configuration to allow the Falcon 9 to launch on Tuesday.
SpaceX did manage to launch just hours later, with two satellites for the SES-owned O3b Networks, mPOWER 9 and mPOWER 10, launched on their second launch opportunity on Tuesday, July 22 at 5:27 PM EDT (21:27 UTC), the weather having improved sufficiently to allow the mission to liftoff on schedule.
LAUNCH! Falcon 9 beats the weather at the Cape! https://t.co/tl2SdwcfpG pic.twitter.com/yCQ9pY6Zzs
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) July 22, 2025
The SpaceX Falcon 9 launched from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida.
The first attempt for launch was scheduled on Monday, July 21, at 5:27 PM EDT (21:27 UTC). This launch was scrubbed late in the countdown for as yet unspecified reasons, although the weather conditions were a watch item for this launch, as opposed to a range issue suffered by the West Coast launch.
Another attempt for the TRACERS launch was pencilled in for Wednesday at 11:13 AM PDT (18:13 UTC), within an approximately one-hour and 15-minute window, which launched without issue.
(Lead image credit: SpaceX livestream)
