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."

Comments

Better to cancel rather than fail.

[BarbaraHudson]

I know that they need to get successful launches, but the ability to scrub at the last moment is more important than a "balls-to-the-wall-let's-go-anyway-can-do" attitude. Unlike in Hollywood, there's no room for space cowboys in space.

They'll get it right when it's the right time.