DSCOVR Launch on SpaceX Falcon 9
February 11, 2015
Today, right on time the SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off in the third attempt to place the Space weather satellite DSCOVR on the other side of the moon at the L1 point, The event was picture perfect with clear blue skies and no technical glitches at all. The launch had been delayed twice, once on Sunday for failure of ground radar and again on Tuesday due to unacceptable wind levels.
The Falcon 9 launch was supposed to be followed by a soft landing of the first stage on a platform in the ocean, but this was aborted due to bad weather at the landing site. SpaceX did say they were going to attempt to soft land in the ocean anyway (not on the platform) to gather more data on this technique, in effect practicing and learning for future attempts. This was not technically one of the goals of the mission and was always only a bonus if they could execute it.
DSCOVR is going to be used to improve our space weather predictions. Understanding the space environment is critical as this allows us to better manage and protect satellites, power grids and many other systems that are effected by space weather.
Also, the fact that L1 is on the other side of the Moon is irrelevant and most of the time incorrect, since the L1 referred to is the Earth-Sun L1.
Abort means stopping something already started with intent to complete, and there was no intent to even start a landing attempt if weather conditions did not permit at the location of the barge. As I am sure you are aware, abort has negative connotations that definitely do not apply in this situation. Once landings are planned and approved at or very close to the point of takeoff where weather conditions can be assumed to be the same as those that permitted the takeoff, a failure can be classified as an abort.