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Mars Orbiter Launch Delayed

Posted by Zonk on from the waiting-for-major-tom dept.

Mictian writes "NASA's newest Mars probe, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), was originally scheduled to be launched from Kennedy Space Center Wednesday morning atop an Atlas 5 rocket. However a potential problem with the Atlas' Redundant Rate Gyro Units (RRGUs), that are part of the vehicle's flight control system, detected at Lockheed Martin's factory has caused the engineers to make sure that the two RRGUs in MRO's rocket are working, thus delaying the launch at least until Thursday morning. There is a 1.5 hour launch window daily until the end of the month."

3 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Late Breaking News: by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 5, Funny
    Today elation swept across our fair world when it was revealed by the Council that the invaders from the evil blue planet have been stymied in their latest efforts to despoil our perfect planet.

    K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, was on hand to address the jubilant masses:
    "Gentle Citizens, today I stand before you with my gelsacs swollen with pride. Today I reveal to you that our wise and powerful Council, not being content to merely defend our world against the constant antagonism by the filthy inhabitants of the evil blue planet, have struck a blow agains the aggressors on their own horrid soil! Utilizing our superior technology, we have caused irreperable damage to one of their loathsome machines while it still squatted on the noisome loam of the evil blue planet! All glory to the Council!"

    During the question-and-answer session that followed, when asked by a citizen whether rumours were true that the device damaged was only a minor inconvinence to the sickening inhabitants of the evil blue planet, and that in all probability the craft would be launched within a day, K'Breel ordered the citizen's summary execution. The remainder of the question-and-answer session passed in a remarkably subdued manner.
    --
    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

  2. Hopefully Thursday by Guysmiley777 · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are planning on testing the gyro unit today so they can get the launch off Thursday morning.

    Oddly enough, the Atlas V acually uses Russian engines in the 1st stage. Ironic for a rocket that was originally an ICBM.

    --
    Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
  3. Wikipedia to the rescue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    It takes almost 5 seconds searching the term in the Wikipedia.

    Launch window is a term used in aerospace to describe a time period in which a particular rocket must be launched. For trips into Earth orbit almost any time will do, but if the spacecraft intends to rendezvous with another (or a planet, or other point in space) the launch must be carefully timed so that the orbits overlap at some point in the future. If the rocket does not launch in the "window", it has to wait for the next one before it can be launched.