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Falcon 9 Launch Aborted At Last Minute
ClockEndGooner writes "Sadly, SpaceX had to abort its launch of the Falcon 9 to the International Space Station this morning due to higher than expected pressure levels in one of its engine chambers. NASA and SpaceX have another launch window scheduled for early next week."
Probably better than an engine failing during launch; hopefully everything is worked out for Tuesday.
I guess it's better than blowing up!
"It's a setback for NASA's plan to have private companies take over much of what's been an exclusively government enterprise. "
Not really, the thing intelligently averted a possible problem. Look at the reams of government rockets that blew up on the pad or feet off the ground. Are folks set back? Maybe a little, but if it had blown up it would have been more of a learning experience than a setback. Rocketry is almost nothing but constant failure. The fact that they didn't lose the hardware is an amazing success in my book. Typical CBS trying to paint private enterprises as being unable to compete with the government. Sure private companies can't force citizens to pay for their goods, so are forced to maintain costs to a greater degree, but an amazing set of engineers working anywhere can do amazing things, and are only limited by the bureaucracies they work inside of corporate or government.
I am glad to see this private enterprise is going with caution as opposed to rushing their launch no matter what. Microsoft and many other software companies can start to take notes. Looking forward to see a Falcon 9 servicing the ISS safely when ready.
Tomorrow is another day...
An aborted launch may not be a successful launch, but it also isn't a failed launch. Good call.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I understood from the live footage that it was actually the computer on the Falcon that cut off the engines right after ignition, not any engineer or manager. I may be wrong, though.
I also noticed that if SpaceX had to build the launch pad, the infrastructure, the launch control and the flight control centers, they might come up with bigger bill. But then again, NASA wasn't building the earlier rockets either, was it? So what exactly is new in this endeavour?
When I'm launching my rockets full of explorers from the planet Kerth, we don't do aborts! If the engines are still attached to the ship, I'm punching the throttle and hitting the stage selection control! We're going to the Mun (or at least leaving the ground) no matter what!
Also, I don't do any pansy ass "test flights" guided by computer to some orbiting tin can! Every one of my flights is crewed by red blooded, beer chugging, motorcycle riding Kerbals who LOVE it even when it all goes wrong.
SpaceX and NASA could learn a lot from my experiences...
When you have a $3.6 billion contract and a rocket that cost $300 million to develop and $200,000 just to fuel up, you are going to be very conservative when it comes to safety. The last thing you want is for your investment to literally blow up on you.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
From TFA:
Even NASA's most seasoned launch commentator was taken off-guard.
"Three, two, one, zero and liftoff," announced commentator George Diller, his voice trailing as the rocket failed to budge.
They just keep following the old script, even when things change. Fresh blood, in the form of the private space industry, is great.
Aborting a launch automatically based on sensor data is not a failure; it is a success.
I'm sure the folks on the ISS have enough toilet paper and freeze-dried icecream to make it through the weekend, until the next launch window.
Even NASA's most seasoned launch commentator was taken off-guard.
"Three, two, one, zero and liftoff," announced commentator George Diller, his voice trailing as the rocket failed to budge. "We've had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur."
Commentators do not have realtime views of the raw data that would indicate a cutoff.
Space shuttle mission STS-68 had a similar last-second abort; at 1:00 in the video it even shows the countdown clock at T-0 seconds, even though the main engines actually started the abort sequence a couple seconds earlier. But with the shuttles, it was very obvious to the commentator when liftoff didn't happen because there were solid rocket boosters that didn't fire.
Liquid rockets can usually be shut down. Many can be throttled and even be restarted too.
I'd have to agree with you entirely, minus the misdirected political assumptions.
The journalist is looking at it from the standpoint that SpaceX was supposed to launch today and something went wrong, so it's a setback. In reality, what happened today was somewhat impressive in-and-of itself. The Falcon rocket auto-detected a problem with software and half a second before liftoff shut itself down without any damage.
Would NASA have ever been able to do that? No. NASA would have sent the rocket into space with the problem because it had no such software. This already seems way better and safer.
However, the journalist probably just didn't think about it that in-depth and so sees the failure to launch as a small failure (which it is, albiet not a serious one and a strong success at the same time). His talk of government is just boilerplate background not a biased pro-government agenda.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
But then again, NASA wasn't building the earlier rockets either, was it? So what exactly is new in this endeavour?
NASA more or less spec'd what the rocket had to do, rather than designing the rocket and hiring subcontractors to build it.
But the main difference is that SpaceX can make this rocket in a way they deem efficient, rather than building some parts in one congressman's district, shipping them along a special rail line to another location, etc.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The technology to abort a takeoff in the last 1/2 second is truly amazing, and because of high combustion pressure in an engine is a perfect catch. If the Boeing Delta II in 1997 had had the same type of status checking, it might have discovered the 17 foot crack in the booster, and aborted also, instead of blowing up on launch: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9701/17/rocket.explosion/index.html. And a Delta III had a rocket engine failure in 1999, which ruined the mission: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19990626&slug=2968601. So the ability to detect an engine problem and shutdown before liftoff is again an amazing feat, and shows advancing technology. SpaceX is doing this right!
They could have achieved this without lighting the engines.
The issue was high pressure in engine number 5. They would NOT be able to achieve this until combustion began, at which point the pressure they are measuring is generated. The guy hosting the webcast said something to the effect of "The computer analyzes everything after we light the engine, but before we release the rocket for flight, and will shut down if it detects a problem before we actually launch."
A safety system worked as intended. All-in-all, a good safety system to have in place.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Not quite though. The difference between traditional government contracting and the current COTS/CCDev approach is subtle but important.
Development of all NASA vehicles (past the initial architecture studies) are done largely by private companies such as Lockheed Martin. However, the contracts for doing so are basically that the contractor is building exactly what the government asked of them, and they will be paid whatever the development costs with an additional guaranteed profit on top of it -- thus the name 'cost-plus contracting.' While this is necessary for high-risk, low-reward development, its something to avoid whenever possible since it combines the lack of competition of monopolistic or governmental development with the desire of corporations to increase their profits -- this is clearly a recipe for rising costs.
COTS and CCDev operate on a model more like how you and I buy things. The companies contracted this way are being paid a fixed amount and expected to produce. Because this is an expensive field, some of the money is being provided up front (and at certain milestones) in order to speed up development, but even if the final product ends up costing more than NASA pays, we the taxpayer don't pay any extra -- the companies involved will still finish it though because otherwise they don't get paid (assuming they're far enough along at the time of realizing they're going to be over-budget that its still cheaper to finish). After development, it will be a purely pay for service contract, different from getting a Super Shuttle from the airport only in scale. By having multiple competitors and fixed-price contracts, costs and quality will be controlled.
So yes, all previously development was 'commercial' as well. As someone involved in pushing for these "New Space" approaches, I really wish we had picked a better name for it, because the difference is subtle but importantly. Personally, I really like the name COTS because it implies the true goal: to make purchasing flights to orbit as simple as pulling the best competitor for the particular mission 'off the shelf' rather than requesting cost-plus custom solutions.