SpaceX at 3:34 p.m. Monday is poised to launch its 16th mission this year, doubling last year's total.
A Korean telecommunications satellite sits atop a 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center’s historic pad 39A, the former launch site for moon rockets and space shuttles.
The launch forecast is excellent, with less than a 10 percent chance of weather violating launch rules. Wind is a very slight concern during the more than two-hour window.
The Falcon 9 will attempt to boost the roughly 8,000-pound Koreasat-5A on its way to an orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator.
Minutes after liftoff, the rocket’s first stage will drop from space to the deck of an unpiloted ship floating offshore in the Atlantic Ocean.
If successful, the tail-down landing on the "drone ship" would be the 19th by a Falcon booster in less than two years since SpaceX first accomplished the feat.
That total includes three touchdowns on legs by rockets flying for a second time, as SpaceX works to prove large, orbital rockets can be reused.
The all-new Falcon 9 launching Monday afternoon is carrying the fifth satellite owned by KT SAT, a Seoul-headquartered subsidiary of KT Corp., Korea’s largest telecommunications and media services company.
Parked in an orbital position at 113 degrees East longitude, the satellite built in France by Thales Alenia Space will provide television and Internet services in Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.