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SpaceX Flight 4 Launch Postponed

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the better-safe-than-exploded dept.

Matt_dk noted that yesterday's launch plans for SpaceX have hit some turbulence. He says "SpaceX Flight 4 Launch has been postponed. The static fire took place on Saturday [20 Sep 2008, CA time], as expected, and no major issues came up. However, after a detailed analysis of data, we decided to replace a component in the 2nd stage engine LOX supply line. There is a good chance we would be ok flying as is, but we are being extremely cautious. This adds a few extra days to the schedule, so the updated launch window estimate is now Sept 28th through Oct 1st [CA time]."

59 comments

  1. More Wasteful then NASA? by aussie_a · · Score: 4, Funny

    With such wastefulness as replacing good parts, is privatising the space industry really the answer? After all, I don't think even NASA replaces perfectly good parts.

    1. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Ritz_Just_Ritz · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I don't think even NASA replaces perfectly good parts."

      Yeah, better to just wait until they explode. Then you KNOW they needed to be replaced.

    2. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. THAN not THEN
      2. if they try but fail guys like you say they are not even as cautious as NASA (now that they are cautious, you have problem with that too).

    3. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Teancum · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm assuming this is a joke, intended to get a few funny mod points here.

      If this were serious, of course some occasional parts that are likely to be good but have a question of doubt that they may be bad are replaced. Heck, I do that when I'm repairing my automobile... for exactly the very same reason. If I'm digging into the timing belt and I know the water pump has 50,000 miles on it, I'll change it (the water pump) out even if it is presumably working just fine... just to give an example.

      This is good maintenance practice, and how you keep things flying. It is also called rocket science here.

    4. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Funny

      So how many miles did this part have on it? I thought they hadn't actually gotten into space.

    5. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by PDAMedic · · Score: 1

      At least they are doing it without any cost to the tax payers - unlike NASA. Either way there is too much at stake not to be cautious. I wish them luck.

    6. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by aussie_a · · Score: 1

      To clarify, I thought this vehicle hadn't actually gotten into space.

    7. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Phizzle · · Score: 0

      Yeah this is a little different than the Space Race of the Cold War. Investors watching, proceed with caution.

      --
      I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
    8. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Informative

      If the general principle is still eluding you, just read "after a detailed analysis of data" in the summary as meaning the data is what provided the motivation for changing the part, assume that they neither want to spend money nor delay the launch for no reason, and leave it at that, okay?

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    9. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Raaabart, Saare NASA ke scientist ko Liquid Oxygen me daal do. Oxygen unhe marne nahi dega. Liquid unhe jeene nahi dega.

    10. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by BraksDad · · Score: 1

      Just fly the shuttle till they are all gone, then you know you got the most out of them.

      --
      Slowly waving my hand - "This is not the sig you are looking for."
    11. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by mcgrew · · Score: 2, Informative

      Also, a LOX fitting is a lot more like replacing a leaky fuel pump than a leaky water pump. LOX is liquid oxygen. Spray it on a drop of grease and it will explode.

      Nothing burns without oxygen, in a pure oxygen environment nearly anything will burn. After the Apolli 1 tragedy, NASA changed their procedures quite a bit.

      Rust is burned steel.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
    12. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Let me put it this way; if SpaceX gets to orbit successfully in Flight 98 it still will have spent 20 million dollars less than one Space Shuttle flight. ONE.

      There's just no way private enterprise can compete with government when it comes to wasting money. We'd have to see private central banks emitting fiat money to have even a remote chance of seeing this kind of a dispute.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    13. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by belligerent0001 · · Score: 0

      Your right! this is damn wasteful! NASA sometimes doesn't even replace defective parts or ignores problems with them in general.

      --
      "...a civilian some of the time, a soldier part of the time and a patriot all of the time." -Brig. Gen. James Drain
    14. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by twiddlingbits · · Score: 0, Troll

      NASA = Need Another Seven Astronauts. They replace perfectly good PEOPLE instead of parts, and not just once either. Good to see someone is taking the lessons to heart!

    15. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by twiddlingbits · · Score: 0, Troll

      True..A private business has to earn the money before they can waste it, the Government just gets it for nothing from your paycheck. And of course a business that wastes money goes under, a Government just raises your tax or cuts services..or both!

    16. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Let me put it this way; if SpaceX gets to orbit successfully in Flight 98 it still will have spent 20 million dollars less than one Space Shuttle flight. ONE.

      A skateboard costs less than a full size truck too... So what? You get what you pay for.

    17. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let me put it this way; if SpaceX gets to orbit successfully in Flight 98 it still will have spent 20 million dollars less than one Space Shuttle flight. ONE.

      Um, you are aware that the space shuttle launches fifty times more payload that the Falcon-I does, right?

      I'd also point out that the price-per-launch of Falcon that you see quoted was calculated back when Space-X was boasting that their per-launch labor cost would be very low because they wouldn't have to do as much quality control and inspections and so forth per launch as the traditional aerospace companies do, because they had implemented "reliability by design".

    18. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Deadstick · · Score: 1

      Anything that's had LOX flowing through it has some "mileage" on it.

      rj

    19. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Rei · · Score: 1

      If this were serious, of course some occasional parts that are likely to be good but have a question of doubt that they may be bad are replaced. Heck, I do that when I'm repairing my automobile... for exactly the very same reason.

      And this is a rocket going into outer freaking space. It's not like your car will blow up if something goes wrong. Unlike your car, an orbital rocket will.

      Okay, well... I'm assuming that you don't drive an early Ford Pinto.

      --
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    20. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Rei · · Score: 1

      Well, given that since they resolved the corrosion problems of the first flight, they haven't had one in-flight part failure, I don't think you can yet criticize them for quality control. Flights 2 and 3 failed due to engineering issues that didn't show up in simulations or ground testing, not defective parts.

      FYI, developing a new launch system from scratch is an extremely high risk endeavour (our early rocket programs experienced the same thing). Imagine if software that you wrote could only be run for testing purposes once or twice before release, and any single bug in your program likely meant that your customers would irrevocably lose all of their data. That's the sort of situation that rocket engineers have to face.

      --
      You don't exist. Go away.
    21. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SpaceX is partially funded by NASA.

    22. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by confused+one · · Score: 1

      Not really. With NASA, you get the lowest bidder doing the work or providing the parts. Problem is, since the competition is thin, the bidders all pad their estimate. It's a game of "Is this bid low enough or am I padding too much compared to company x". Add the fact that there are usually ways to request additional money for "cost increases." Once there are many companies all bidding on the same components and many of the components are being sold, the price should go down.

    23. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by turgid · · Score: 1

      Um, you are aware that the space shuttle launches fifty times more payload that the Falcon-I does, right?

      And that would be 98% more than it needs to for the kinds of missions Falcon-I is designed for. The problem with the shuttle is that all of those engines, payload bay, wings, plumbing and so forth have to go up whether you're launching a part of the space station, spy satellite or not. Suffice to say it's all pretty fragile and wonky, but in the land of the Cowboy, we don't mind recklessly sacrificing lives 'cause it's big and better to die a hero than to live to invent something better. Yeehaw! (cue musical horn from General Lee)

      --
      Stick Men
    24. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Teancum · · Score: 2, Informative

      It will be interesting to see what is going to happen with the Falcon 9 program. The Falcon 1 is really just a test vehicle (although it is going into production with some paying customers) for the Falcon 9 program. That is when the real fun is going to come in.

      The Merlin engine on the Falcon 9 is identical to the one on the Falcon 1.... only it will have more of them running at the same time. The payload capacity of the Falcon 9 is also going to be sufficient to be able to launch a manned capsule (also under development by SpaceX... called the Dragon) that will carry seven astronauts, along with an unpressurized cargo area to haul some more goods with them.

      While certainly not capable of launching what the Shuttle or even the Saturn V could do into space, it is rather respectable in its own right. The current launch manifest has the Falcon 9 launching sometime in the first half of next year... pending of course the success of this flight of the Falcon 1.

    25. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Teancum · · Score: 2, Informative

      As far as the per-launch costs are concerned... Elon has publicly stated that the development costs aren't going to significantly impact the final production costs... and in fact claims that he is going to reduce the price per launch once they get a good handle on the market and have a more firm grasp of operational costs.

      Where they save the money isn't really so much reducing the inspections necessary for flight, but rather reducing the size of the crew necessary to tend, build, and launch the vehicle. Some processes are drastically simplified (for example, the internal diagnostics are done on an internal TCP/IP network instead of dedicated analog lines typical of the Apollo-era rockets) and the fact that they aren't creating "make work" projects for congressional pork.

      If the launch crews for the previous three launches of the Falcon 1 are any indication, it is only a dozen or so people at the actual launch site who are directly involved with getting the rocket into orbit. This is contrasted with the 10's of thousands of workers involved with processing and launching the Space Shuttle... just at KSC.

      Furthermore, the launch recycling time from abort to re-starting the countdown is incredibly short. On both launch attempts #2 and #3, it was done in less than an hour. The typical industry standard in that situation is about a day to a week. This means that a minor technical issue can be dealt with, the rocket even "repaired", and not even have to give the launch team anything more than a lunch break before having to restart the launch sequence. This alone is an incredible cost savings that in turn reduces the price of flying this spacecraft.

      I could go into other areas that SpaceX has pioneered spacecraft development cost reduction, but those are just icing on the cake. They certainly have made a big splash in the spaceflight industry.

    26. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by khallow · · Score: 1

      It's even worse than the grandparent implied. He's just using the marginal cost of a Shuttle flight which is somewhere around 250 million dollars. The lifetime cost of a Shuttle flight is well over a billion dollars each once you include annual fixed costs. I bet the whole development chain of the Falcon 1 through a manned Falcon 9 with capsule is going to be a lot less than the cost of a Space Shuttle flight.

    27. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      To describe your response as clueless is a grave insult to the existing legions of clueless people out there - as it implies their intelligence is even less that currently believed.

      No matter how cheap small potatoes launchers get - they will never replace the Shuttle and its capabilities, any more than than skateboards and Yugos will replace F150s and semis. Even if larger launchers (like the Falcon 9) become cheap, you still lack many important capabilities.

    28. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Man, did you see the Falcon Heavy? I disagree with you on that. Can you tell me those other important capabilities that the SpaceX launchers lack?

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    29. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

      Well, actually no, I was not aware of that. But the Falcon 1 is more like a proof of concept than a workhorse. Check out the 9 and Heavy models. How do they stack up price/performance-wise against the Shuttle?

      If the shuttle carries more payload than the F9 Heavy will but costs more than it's increased capacity, it's still a better deal to go with the F9.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    30. Re:More Wasteful then NASA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To clarify, I thought this vehicle hadn't actually gotten into space.

      Space is 50 Miles up. The vehicle got to space, not to orbit, which is the real goal.

  2. Live Webcast? by Nit+Picker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Will this launch have a live webcast like flight 3? If so, does anyone have the details?

    1. Re:Live Webcast? by Teancum · · Score: 3, Informative

      Assuming that they need the video telemetry anyway, and that they have been making some rather public announcements about this launch... I would say it is quite likely.

      If you don't want to miss the webcast, make sure you look at the "main page" of the SpaceX website... where they've had links to the webcast on each of the previous launches.

      http://spacex.com/

  3. LOX is liquid oxygen by QuietRiot · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you're wondering, LOX is "Liquified Oxygen"

    1. Re:LOX is liquid oxygen by Usquebaugh · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's salmon and cream cheese

    2. Re:LOX is liquid oxygen by oodaloop · · Score: 1

      Like we all haven't previously learned this from the Jame Bond movie You Only Live Twice.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    3. Re:LOX is liquid oxygen by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 3, Informative

      Karma whore. :-P

      Lemme see if I can get some too: In case you're wondering, SpaceX actually means Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

      --
      Send your spendthrift head of state this
    4. Re:LOX is liquid oxygen by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, it's just salmon. You put both lox and creamcheese on a bagel.

      --
      Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
    5. Re:LOX is liquid oxygen by Yetihehe · · Score: 1

      Probably it's still better than salami

      --
      Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
    6. Re:LOX is liquid oxygen by Wowlapalooza · · Score: 0

      Haven't you guys ever heard of Wikipedia? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lox. Lox is cured salmon fillet. In its most popular form, it's thinly sliced.

    7. Re:LOX is liquid oxygen by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 1

      And how is cured salmon fillet not salmon? :-)

      --
      Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
    8. Re:LOX is liquid oxygen by Wowlapalooza · · Score: 0

      I wasn't disagreeing, just giving a more precise definition.

      I'll note in passing, however, that "just salmon" can (arguably) be interpreted as establishing an exact equivalence between "lox" and "salmon", when in fact lox is a subset of the forms in which salmon is processed/prepared for consumption.

      The word "just" in English has multiple meanings: in this context is can be taken as either synonymous with "merely", or synonymous with "exactly". Hence the ambiguity.

      "Just" can also, of course, be taken as an adjective, meaning "fair", "equitable" or "even", but we don't normally attribute such qualities to fish, especially when they're dead :-)

  4. news? by TheCybernator · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I didn't get the news here.

    --
    Eclipse PDE and Me
    1. Re:news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Time for you to turn in your geek card.

    2. Re:news? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, he's kinda right. This post's summary is contained in the first comment of the previous post on this topic.

  5. Oh good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it was not YOUR attention that they are trying to capture. And it is hubris to think otherwise.

    1. Re:Oh good by elrous0 · · Score: 0, Troll

      The world revolves around me. It began on the day I was born and will end on the day I die. So, naturally, everyone is vying for my attention.

      Also, I have a very large penis.

      Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Xbox Live to call everyone who doesn't recognize my superior skills a "fag" or "nigger" in as annoying a voice as I can muster.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  6. Re:Put it in the documentary after you suceed by Teancum · · Score: 5, Informative

    In fairness to SpaceX.... they have been able to make it into space before. They did that on the previous two attempts. Their main problem was one of not being able to stay up there due to crazy problems with their second stage.

    I hope that they finally have figured that one out... and the last issue (having the rocket crash into itself and destroy the 2nd stage nozzle as a result) is something they are kicking themselves over even now.

    The rocket they have built is certainly more than capable of getting up to space and maintaining orbital velocities.

  7. karma --don't care by QuietRiot · · Score: 1

    I couldn't give a shit about karma[1] right now.

    Goal here was to inform a reader unfamiliar with the term from within the thread so they would not have to go out of the conversation to search for what LOX means. It's just unobvious enough that I knew some might not know and it took me half a sec to author.

    ( I appreciate your " :-P " Marco. )

    I also didn't want to return to the thread later today and find 30 posts asking what LOX was....

    Have a super day!

    [1] slashdot karma that is...

  8. dupe by smoker2 · · Score: 1

    How is this news AGAIN ? It is still in the /. RSS feed and one of the first posts THEN was the summary presented here.

  9. Re:Put it in the documentary after you suceed by Rei · · Score: 1

    Yep -- Flight 2 would have been orbital if they had just installed a baffle *or* reduced the stage separation kick (they modified the design for both). Barring something completely unforseen, Flight 3 would have been orbital had they not upgraded the engine *or* had they been able to test in a vacuum (as far as I can tell, the Merlin is too big for even the largest vacuum chambers), *or* had their CFD simulations shown the residual thrust more accurately.

    Unfortunately, while rocketry may sometimes look like hand grenades, "close" doesn't count. One error, even slight, can easily doom an entire mission.

    Anyways, I'm looking forward to this weekend, watching the launch on the big screen with my partner. This sort of thing is a geek equivalent of the superbowl. I'm rooting for the Earthlings to win. ;)

    --
    You don't exist. Go away.
  10. Re:karma --don't care by marco.antonio.costa · · Score: 1

    I hope you didn't get offended or anything, I really meant it like a joke.

    And I just noticed, OMG, I really got modded up informative. *slaps forehead* :-)

    --
    Send your spendthrift head of state this
  11. Re:Put it in the documentary after you suceed by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, while rocketry may sometimes look like hand grenades, "close" doesn't count. One error, even slight, can easily doom an entire mission.

    Yeah, isn't it funny what a few decades of irony can do to a colloquialism like "Well it isn't rocket science", as if that has somehow become easy.

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are