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SpaceX's Friday Launch Scrubbed

Posted by timothy on from the skynet-gets-a-delay dept.

Reuters reports that a SpaceX launch planned for Friday from Cape Canaveral has been scrubbed, though it may be rescheduled for as early as Saturday evening. The Falcon 9 will be lifting six communications satellites for Orbcomm intended to facilitate machine-to-machine communications. According to another report, It was not immediately clear if the problem was with equipment on the rocket or with ground systems connected to the rocket at Launch Complex 40. The mission was delayed from May by a helium leak on the rocket, but it was not known if the same issue was a factor Friday. Launch managers pushed the targeted liftoff from the window's opening at 6:08 p.m. to its end at 7:01 p.m., but ran out of time to resolve the problem. The countdown was halted with under eight minutes to go.

28 comments

  1. Man on Mars by 2026 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Yeah, right!

    1. Re:Man on Mars by 2026 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Woman on Venus by 2020. We Can Do It!

    2. Re:Man on Mars by 2026 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one said he has to be alive when he gets there. Capricorn 1 is the way to do this going forward. To MARS it is!

  2. Old tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    SpaceX -- still using old standard tech! /. seems to have a hard-on for these guys/gals, but they will see failures at a massive scale, that's the way, the space industry works, really any industry!
    Case in point in the Russian rockets, built solid and ran solid, but now (by some mysterious unknown reasons, perhaps sabotage) now they are failing!

    1. Re:Old tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      by some mysterious unknown reasons, perhaps sabotage) now they are failing!

      Check the tape deck for a copy of Magic Carpet Ride, you can't lift off without it.

    2. Re:Old tech by Morky · · Score: 1

      Whether or not it's old tech is irrelevant if they can land their stages for reuse. It would be revolutionary.

    3. Re:Old tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That could have been done before. In fact, it was designed before. It wasn't done with Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury because they were in a hurry. They didn't do it completely with the Space Shuttle because those morons in Congress were already complaining about the budget to develop something which, at the time, was absolutely new and hadn't been done before--resulting of course in a substandard design that caused lots of problems. This is what happens when you cheap out on what is essentially an R&D program. The situation we're in now is what happens when you don't take said R&D program, learn from it, and build something better. There was no excuse except a lack of will, a complete disdain of science in too many areas of our society, and of course the ascension of "conservatives" who were all for cutting every budget line they could possibly find, except of course for massive corporate welfare and (alleged) defense spending--the cost of which dwarfs our space program's budget many times over even from its peak. The public, of course, is kept ignorant of that by the corporate media, and they continually overestimate the percentage of the federal budget that gets spent on NASA and the like.

      Now, SpaceX and the others benefit from all the research that has been done before them, they can see which designs have worked and which have not, and they don't have to invent the machines to build the machines that build their hardware, they have computer aided design that they didn't have to invent, they have launch facilities and range safety stuff that they didn't have to build, and they don't have a hyper-critical press hovering around just waiting for them to screw up. They may be doing their own designs, but they are not designing in a vacuum. They also get to choose their own management, their own suppliers, etc. without interference from idiot senators and representatives who don't know anything about anything technical and yet for some reason are not only allowed to make these kinds of decisions but insist on it--decisions that increase inefficiency but also increase pork for their districts.

      So they have a good environment to work in, they actually get to make choices based on their mission and not on political contributions, and they benefit from decades of experience and taxpayer funded research. This isn't bad (in fact it's always been one of NASA's core missions to share stuff like that), but there's nothing "revolutionary" about them. The hero worship at the altar of privatization is just sickening considering that none of these space companies has yet to do anything even remotely interesting in historical terms. Of course their engineering is better than 1960s era hardware. It would kind of have to be, anybody's would. Had NASA been able to design a successor to the shuttle in the 90s without interference from Congress and the Air Force like with the first one theirs would have been better too.

      So if they have success they should be celebrated for a job well done, but the fawning worship of these full of hot air "private" space companies has just got to stop.

    4. Re:Old tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're like an agnostic making a speech in a monastery. But you're still correct.

  3. Why don't we ever see these stories about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Wallops does tons of this kind of stuff. Don't we hear about it because it's not the almighty Elon Musk? Not that I'm against him but others are doing what he does for private space and EVs but they seem to go unnoticed around here. Is this so we can have another geek-god we can credit everything with even though others are doing the same work at the same time? It's like another Tesla... others were doing the same work as Tesla but the fanboys act like Tesla was just doing everything on his own out of thin air... you can't even be bothered with the other giants who propped Tesla up.

    1. Re:Why don't we ever see these stories about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Geeks like to think they're above religion, but Jobs proved otherwise, and Musk follows in His footsteps. This recent tech conference pretty much shows it as it is.

    2. Re: Why don't we ever see these stories about... by randallman · · Score: 1

      Are the also landing their first stage and colonizing Mars?

    3. Re: Why don't we ever see these stories about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unlike Musk, NASA's already been to Mars. Musk is just talking about it. And this has nothing to do with Mars. It just shows how much of a fucking fanfag you are.

    4. Re:Why don't we ever see these stories about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You got that right. The Space Nutters have an entire religion built around rockets complete with a doomsday scenario and separation of the worthy and unworthy and a Heaven.

    5. Re:Why don't we ever see these stories about... by gman003 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Er, Wallops is a launch site, like Canaveral. Pretty much anyone can launch from there - the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport is located there. If you're referring to OSC, who are the major non-government users of Wallops, you're being needlessly confusing.

      Also, OSC is good at cobbling together pieces. The Minotaurs are recycled ICBMs, either Peacekeepers or Minuteman missiles. The Antares uses Russian engines, a Ukrainian-designed first stage, then an off-the-shelf solid-fuel second stage. They do remarkably good work considering their limitations, but much of the work of "getting to space" was already done for them, they just had to make it work with their payloads and launch facilities.

      SpaceX is doing everything from scratch - much more expensive, but it has the advantage of not making them reliant on anyone else. OSC is already in trouble because Russia is cutting off their supply of engines for Antares. They'll also be in trouble if the US military ever cuts off their supply of old missiles, either because they need them as missiles again, or because they've simply run out. OSC does good work, but they seem to be a dead-end in the long term.

  4. all nice and clean, now by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    for the Saturday Night dance.

  5. SpaceX should know when to quit by Tin+Weasil · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Elon Musk and his SpaceX team should pack it up. They'll never make it to Mars now that they're taking on the real space corporations by trying to get into their satellite launch business. SpaceX is about to be buried alive.

    1. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by FPhlyer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      WTH? You don't post anything on Slashdot in YEARS and you do it to post this kind of baseless drivel? And you gotta pull out your +1 Karma bonus to boot? Crawl back under your rock you Troll!

      --
      Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
    2. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by Tin+Weasil · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      It's my account and I'll post when I'm good and ready. It's called FREE SPEACH!

    3. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by FPhlyer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well... that might be what YOU call it but the rest of us call it FREE SPEECH. Get a dictionary. Troll.

      --
      Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
    4. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by Tin+Weasil · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Take your stupid spelling police crap back to Reddit.

    5. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by FPhlyer · · Score: 2, Informative

      Look... I'm sorry. I had a really bad day and it looks like I'm taking it out on you. I really am sorry. Didn't mean to get into anyone's face when I woke up this morning.

      --
      Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
    6. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by Tin+Weasil · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Hey. No worries.
      ((((((hug)))))))

    7. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by oobayly · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I suppose they should have just gone ahead with the launch. There was probably only a small chance of doing this or this.

    8. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by khallow · · Score: 2

      So where are these "real space corporations"?

    9. Re:SpaceX should know when to quit by Morky · · Score: 3, Informative

      Faith in humanity restored.

  6. Hmm... the start of skynet? by BStorm · · Score: 2

    Hmm, Satellites assisting in machine to machine communications, could this be the start of Skynet?

    --
    Research is what I doing when I don't know what I am doing - Werner von Braun
    1. Re:Hmm... the start of skynet? by MildlyTangy · · Score: 1

      Hmm,

      Satellites assisting in machine to machine communications, could this be the start of Skynet?

      No.

        - My toast fell on the ground butter side up this morning, could this be the start of a new iceberg breaking off the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica?
        - Yesterday afternoon, my sister drank half a bottle of lemon water, could this be the start of the Facebook bubble burst?
        - 3 hours ago, I went to the toilet, could this be the start of a new print job on the third xerox printer in the Parliament building in Canberra, Australia?

      Can you see where where this is going?

  7. Man on Mars by 2026 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    he actually meant Le Mars, Iowa