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SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch and Historic Landing Aborted
An anonymous reader writes With only 29 seconds in the countdown, SpaceX had to abort the launch due to a last-minute problem with actuator drift, affecting the motors that control the second stage's rocket thrust. "SpaceX had to scrub Tuesday's attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station and make a historic rocket landing. The landing experiment would have involved putting the first stage of the two-stage rocket on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean, about 200 miles off the coast of Florida. Such a feat has never been done before. A successful maneuver would have marked a significant step toward making rockets more reusable and driving down the cost of spaceflight."
may have more to do with launch windows than anything else
Yes, the next ISS launch window is Friday morning.
... and in case you were wondering:
Actuator drift occurs when a valve is out of null, resulting in a piston moving slowly or drifting when there is no control signal (e.g. when the electrical power is off).
Now to research what is "out of null"....
Elon Musk just did an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit. Here's one Q/A.
Mr Musk, How will you secure the first stage of the Falcon 9 to the barge when it lands? Gravity or some mechanism? REPLY [–]ElonMuskOfficial " Mostly gravity. The center of gravity is pretty low for the booster, as all the engines and residual propellant is at the bottom. We are going to weld steel shoes over the landing feet as a precautionary measure." http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/c...