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SpaceX Rocket Launch Postponed Again (www.cbc.ca)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the safe-than-sorry dept.

ClickOnThis writes with a CBC report that SpaceX has "called off a planned launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a communications satellite less than two minutes before blastoff from Florida on Thursday, citing a technical problem. It marked the second straight day that Elon Musk's privately owned Space Exploration Technologies had postponed the launch."

16 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. A link with some actual information by Harlequin80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    http://spaceflightnow.com/2016...

    The Falcon 9 rocket’s countdown proceeded normally Thursday until a member of the SpaceX launch team called a hold at approximately T-minus 1 minute, 41 seconds, before the scheduled launch time of 6:47 p.m. EST (2347 GMT).

    The cause of the last-minute abort was an issue with loading cryogenic liquid oxygen into the rocket, according to a SpaceX official on the official launch webcast. Both stages of the Falcon 9 burn a mixture of RP-1 kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen.

    1. Re:A link with some actual information by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Falcon 9 v1.2 uses deep chilled liquid oxygen in order to increase the propellant density, so more can get loaded on, which (according to Tsiolkovsky's Rocket Equation) increases the velocity to which it can accelerate a given payload mass (or conversely, how much mass you can accelerate to a given velocity). This system has been giving SpaceX some teething troubles.

      SES-9 is going to a very high Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) to allow the satellite to get to its station sooner, as this mission has been delayed for a while. SpaceX is working really hard to get this satellite out as high as they can for the customer. They are still going to attempt to recover the first stage on a barge, but concede that they are going to be at the absolute limits of their fuel for this attempt, so it is very possible that they'll run out of fuel before touchdown. They are really pushing the envelope of the Falcon 9 v1.2 with this launch.

      --

      Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

      Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    2. Re:A link with some actual information by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 4, Informative

      As explained in your linked article, the latest version of Falcon 9 uses super-cold liquid oxygen, as it is denser. This means that they need to pump it in just before launch, so it doesn't have time to warm up. Previously the LO2 would have been loaded a few hours before launch, and there would have been plenty of time to deal with any loading issues, so this bit of cleverness has cost them a scrubbed launch. Hopefully it is just teething troubles and they'll be able to make the LO2 loading process reliable soon.

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    3. Re:A link with some actual information by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think it is indeed just teething troubles as you say. The Russians have been using supercooled LOX for a long time and have managed to perfect it, so that is an existence proof that there is no fundamental obstacle in the way.

  2. not fair... by inicom · · Score: 1

    to phrase it like that - it's far far far better to scrub a launch with the slightest potential for error than to have a failure. The launch director must always err on the side of caution.

    --
    -a.e.mossberg
    1. Re:not fair... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      it's far far far better to scrub a launch with the slightest potential for error than to have a failure.

      Submitter here. You're absolutely right!

      I submitted because I haven't seen a story about this flight on slashdot since SpaceX's last launch. The next launch is significant because they're trying for another soft-landing of the first stage on the ocean barge. I just wanted everyone to be up-to-date.

      Thanks also to Harlequin80 for the link to spaceflightnow.com (see above.)

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    2. Re:not fair... by Cytotoxic · · Score: 1

      The landing attempt on the barge is also significant because of the GEO transfer profile of this flight. The booster will be going much faster than previous landing attempts, so it is much riskier.

      I was impressed with the landing site - the landing is supposed to be about 10 minutes after launch and it takes place 400 miles down range. Wow... rockets are... uh,... really fast.

    3. Re:not fair... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      The landing attempt on the barge is also significant because of the GEO transfer profile of this flight. The booster will be going much faster than previous landing attempts, so it is much riskier.

      Excellent point. Riskier because they will have less contingency in the amount of fuel available for the soft landing. Thus the prudent cancellation of the launch when they suspected a problem with the loading of fuel onto the rocket.

      I was impressed with the landing site - the landing is supposed to be about 10 minutes after launch and it takes place 400 miles down range. Wow... rockets are... uh,... really fast.

      Yup. Rockets need to accelerate to high velocity in order to put stuff in space so that it stays there. Low-earth-orbit velocity is about 7.8 km/s.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  3. Big Deal by chromaexcursion · · Score: 1

    Why is this news!
    the shuttle wouldn't have blown up if NASA hadn't been chasing headlines.
    Safety First!

    1. Re: Big Deal by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wow. Pretty much ever syllable in your post is wrong.

      The only reason there were O rings in the boosters at all is because of political interference in the design. In order to buy off enough senators to get the thing paid for, they had to designate various aspects of the project to different states. So the boosters had to be manufactured 3,000 miles away from the launch site and be shipped via rail. So, we get O rings. Not because of some private corporate interest, but because funding was dependent on getting enough votes in the senate.

      This is precisely the same reason the new SLS rocket looks like it does. It is 100% purposed as a replacement jobs program for the shuttle jobs.

      The pressure to Go on Challenger was for the image of the space program, not the image of the Reagan-bot. They needed to secure funding and needed their teacher in space. This was the source of the Go-fever. And the source was not from within the suppliers - the pressure was on the suppliers to maintain the schedule. Their failure was in acceding to the pressure instead of doing the right thing and issuing the hold.

  4. Re:Good idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "than", not "then"

    "Postpone, then go boom" would be a bad thing

  5. Re: second straight day? by michelcolman · · Score: 1

    Elon probably just forgot a decoupler somewhere so he clicked "revert to vehicle assembly".

    Or maybe the staging sequence got messed up, although they should have been able to fix that on the launch pad.

  6. Re: second straight day? by oobayly · · Score: 1

    Even more unfortunately - he's playing with the Kerbal Construction Time mod.

  7. Re:Another day, ANother Space-X Failure by oobayly · · Score: 1

    I'm intrigued, is that something you actually believe, or is it simple to get a rise out of people. Either way I'd love to know what the rationale is.

  8. Re:Another day, ANother Space-X Failure by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 1

    Seems obvious to me.

    Rocket launch delayed. Covered in major news sources around the world.

    Airliner fails to fly, a few whiny posts on Twitter.

    Car fails to start. News doesn't make it out of your driveway.

    All of these are exactly the same event, but only one of them results in a news shitstorm, and only one of those results in management pressure on the guys on the line. If your car failing to start resulted in the same shitstorm of news, trust me, there would be constant car crashes because of it.

  9. Re:Another day, ANother Space-X Failure by Cytotoxic · · Score: 1

    While i agree with your point, I really don't think the car analogy is apt this time. The mode of failure for cars not starting is: "something doesn't work, so it won't start." Not so much a safety precaution as a "it don't work" sort of thing. Nobody performs a pre-drive safety check and calls a halt because of a fault in a subsystem. You put the key in and if it starts, you go. You can run the thing without oil and it will complain, but it won't stop you.... until it breaks. The airline analogy is much more applicable because they do face pressure for on-time departures and they do issue holds for safety reasons.