Originally Posted by
tomgoodman
I believe that a rocket launched from the Kourou (French Guiana) site can handle a geostationary payload about 15% greater than if launched from Canaveral. Perhaps this satellite isn't heavy enough to require the extra performance, and they already have infrastructure in place at the Cape. If they moved the same rocket to Kourou it would still have to be fully fueled, for structural reasons, so they'd just schedule a shorter burn.
Lots of extra fuel on the Falcon 9, enough -in fact- to do
this after launching a payload to orbit:
(Grasshopper is the Falcon 9 first stage, this is obviously a landing test. The last Falcon 9 first stage did perform the powered return test over water...)
Cheers
George