Skip to footer

Bold SpaceX mission scrubbed at last minute

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the first stage of which was to attempt to touch down on a floating ocean platform, was scrubbed minutes before liftoff after a glitch was detected.

|
SpaceX
Launch of a Space Exploration Technologies Falcon 9 rocket was called off about two minutes before liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Tuesday when a computer detected a potential technical problem.

Sen—Launch of a Space Exploration Technologies Falcon 9 rocket was called off less than two minutes before liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Tuesday when a computer detected a potential problem with the booster's upper-stage engine.

The next opportunity for launch is at 5:09 a.m. EST (1009 UTC) Friday.

The problem appears to be with actuators in the upper-stage motor’s thrust vector control system, said NASA launch commentator George Diller.

The rocket is carrying a Dragon capsule loaded with more than 5,100 pounds of food, equipment and supplies for the International Space Station.

SpaceX, as the California-based company is known, had planned to fly in December, but delayed the flight after a routine prelaunch engine firing shut down prematurely.

NASA is more dependent on SpaceX for station resupply runs since a launch accident temporarily grounded its second cargo carrier, Orbital Sciences Corp.

The launch delay also postpones an unusual test SpaceX plans to conduct after the rocket’s first-stage separates from the upper-stage motor and Dragon cargo ship. As it descends back to Earth, the booster is preprogrammed to land itself on a 300 by 100-ft platform floating off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida.

"Returning anything from space is a challenge, but returning a Falcon 9 first stage for a precision landing presents a number of additional hurdles," SpaceX wrote in a blog post last month.

 "At 14 stories tall and traveling upwards of 1,300 m/s (meters per second, or 2,908 mph), stabilizing the Falcon 9 first stage for re-entry is like trying to balance a rubber broomstick on your hand in the middle of a wind storm,” SpaceX said.

If the touchdown is successful, the rocket will vent any residual liquid oxygen, clearing the way for engineers on a nearby support ship to board the platform and lock the booster’s landing legs onto the deck to secure for the ride back to Jacksonville, Florida.

SpaceX is working on technology that will enable it to refurbish and refly its rockets, slashing the costs of launch.

Related Links:

SpaceX delays next cargo run to January

SpaceX Falcon rocket landed intact

More on Falcon 9

Original story from Sen. © 2014 Sen TV Limited. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more space news visit Sen.com and follow @sen on Twitter.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Bold SpaceX mission scrubbed at last minute
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2015/0106/Bold-SpaceX-mission-scrubbed-at-last-minute
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe