Falcon 9 Launch Aborted At Last Minute 149
ClockEndGooner writes "Sadly, SpaceX had to abort its launch of the Falcon 9 to the International Space Station this morning due to higher than expected pressure levels in one of its engine chambers. NASA and SpaceX have another launch window scheduled for early next week."
Probably better than an engine failing during launch; hopefully everything is worked out for Tuesday.
Re:Pussies (Score:4, Informative)
"Commentator was taken off-guard" (Score:4, Informative)
Even NASA's most seasoned launch commentator was taken off-guard.
"Three, two, one, zero and liftoff," announced commentator George Diller, his voice trailing as the rocket failed to budge. "We've had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur."
Commentators do not have realtime views of the raw data that would indicate a cutoff.
Space shuttle mission STS-68 had a similar last-second abort [youtube.com]; at 1:00 in the video it even shows the countdown clock at T-0 seconds, even though the main engines actually started the abort sequence a couple seconds earlier. But with the shuttles, it was very obvious to the commentator when liftoff didn't happen because there were solid rocket boosters that didn't fire.
Re:technical problems != technicalities (Score:5, Informative)
Liquid rockets can usually be shut down. Many can be throttled and even be restarted too.
Re:In MY space program, we don't do aborts! (Score:2, Informative)
I guess you didn't get the reference
http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/
Re:technical problems != technicalities (Score:2, Informative)
Of course you can. You stop the turbopumps and close the valves. No fuel means no fire.
Re:technical problems != technicalities (Score:4, Informative)
But then again, NASA wasn't building the earlier rockets either, was it? So what exactly is new in this endeavour?
NASA more or less spec'd what the rocket had to do, rather than designing the rocket and hiring subcontractors to build it.
But the main difference is that SpaceX can make this rocket in a way they deem efficient, rather than building some parts in one congressman's district, shipping them along a special rail line to another location, etc.
Re:Agreed...mostly... (Score:5, Informative)
As for TFA - the media makes me bitter. Something that was intended for the good of the public has become vastly more of a harm. While I am of the opinion that the transition from public to private space programs should have been accomplished more organically, privatizing it overall is a good thing. And smear campaigns by the media is only helping to setback our nation - as funding and public opinion are often closely related.
Re:Don't count your chickens before they hatch (Score:4, Informative)
They could have achieved this without lighting the engines.
The issue was high pressure in engine number 5. They would NOT be able to achieve this until combustion began, at which point the pressure they are measuring is generated. The guy hosting the webcast said something to the effect of "The computer analyzes everything after we light the engine, but before we release the rocket for flight, and will shut down if it detects a problem before we actually launch."
A safety system worked as intended. All-in-all, a good safety system to have in place.
Re:fuck CBS. (Score:4, Informative)
A Falcon 9 can lose not just one but two of its engines *after* launch and still complete its mission.
It's just not going to take off when it spots a problem when it's still on the ground. The Saturn V couldn't spot such a problem, much less abort half-a-second before lift-off. It would have been past the point of no return
Re:fuck CBS. (Score:5, Informative)
Tell me, How much of the 1960's Saturn V payload of 256,000 LBS to orbit can this shining new example of "private" technology the Falcon lift? If and when it works?
Well, the heaviest rocket the US can launch today after the shuttle program ended is the Delta IV-H, which at 29 kLBS is not that much bigger than a Falcon 9 at 23 kLBS. The Saturn Vs were an amazing piece of engineering, but they retired almost 40 years ago because they had no other market or purpose than to go to the moon. The Falcon 9 will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Delta IV, Atlas V etc. in their most common medium configuration and the planned Falcon Heavy would exceed any rocket operational today but it'll still only be half a Saturn V. I'm sure SpaceX would love to build a rocket bigger and more badass than the Saturn V, but unless the endless budgets of the Apollo era come back I don't think that's going to happen. Not for NASA, not for SpaceX.
Re:fuck CBS. (Score:4, Informative)
The Saturn V needed all five of its engines running at lift off. I don't know how often a Saturn V launch was aborted just prior to launch, but it did use a similar kind of detection system like the Falcon 9 used today and there were abort parameters for the launch. It wasn't until after the Saturn V was part way into its flight that it could lose one of the engines and maintain its mission profile. The 1st stage in that case did need to burn a little bit longer when that happened though.
In fact the main job of the mission commander during launch was to grab onto an "abort" handle where at any point he didn't like any of the numbers he was seeing that he could twist the handle and stop the flight or send the crew module into abort mode and activate the launch escape system. There were other people who did something similar up until launch and even for a couple minutes afterward at KSC and in Houston at the Johnson Space Center.
The real question that should be asked is why did the Nixon administration junk the Saturn V with all of those capabilities like you are suggesting and replace that with the Space Shuttle, which flew smaller amounts of cargo for a much higher price per launch? Yes, I know the Shuttle wasn't supposed to be more expensive than Saturn V launches, but in the end it turned out to be much more expensive, with a reduced payload capacity and completely abandoning the ability to travel back to the Moon.
BTW, SpaceX is working on an engine called the "Merlin 2" that Elon Musk claims will have the same thrust capacity as the F1 engines used on the Saturn V. As envisioned in a future version of the Falcon 9, it will replace the entire 9-engine cluster currently being used with just one engine instead, or a heavy lift class vehicle that will completely replace for the first time in 40 years the capabilities America had once upon a time with the Saturn V. At the moment, no other country or organization on Earth has that capability or is even planning on that ability (even the SLS won't match the Saturn V performance envelope) so what is your point again?
Re:fuck CBS. (Score:4, Informative)
SpaceX has been receiving money for the development of the Falcon series of rockets from the U.S. government over the life of the whole program. DARPA helped to pay for some of the initial Falcon 1 flights viewing the prospect of another launch company as something beneficial for the American military. DARPA payloads were on board those flights, including a satellite put together by the cadets at the Air Force Academy which flew on flight 3 of the Falcon 1.
This said, Elon Musk and the investors in SpaceX did pay for the bulk of the Falcon 1 development program, and the first two flights of the Falcon 9 were paid completely by SpaceX.
SpaceX has received money under the "Space Act Agreements" program operated through NASA to help with the development of the Falcon 9 as well, including helping to pay for the conformance testing of the docking system that the Dragon capsule will be using to attach itself to the International Space Station. This current flight will also be paid for by NASA through the COTS program, although it should be viewed differently than the cost-plus contractor model that was used to develop all of the previous NASA rocket systems including the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle vehicles as well as most of the other rockets that NASA has used in the past including stuff like the Scout rocket and other "unmanned" vehicles.
There is a difference here, even though I will be the first to admit that some government money is being involved. The largest difference that should be noticed is that SpaceX owns the vehicle and does not need NASA permission in order to sell these vehicles to private individuals.... which was not the case for the Space Shuttle or any of the other vehicles operated by NASA. In the 1970's, a wealthy person could not have gone to Boeing and the other NASA contractors to simply buy a Saturn V regardless of how much money they had, and I know for a fact that in the 1980's and 1990's there were several private investors who wanted to buy a Space Shuttle....and couldn't get congressional authorization for the purchase. There are several private companies who already have purchased the Falcon 9 and will be on future flights of the spacecraft (assuming all goes well in the next few days). Those vehicle being purchased by private companies certainly are not being purchased with public funds.
Re:argh, you dumb fucks (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite though. The difference between traditional government contracting and the current COTS/CCDev approach is subtle but important.
Development of all NASA vehicles (past the initial architecture studies) are done largely by private companies such as Lockheed Martin. However, the contracts for doing so are basically that the contractor is building exactly what the government asked of them, and they will be paid whatever the development costs with an additional guaranteed profit on top of it -- thus the name 'cost-plus contracting.' While this is necessary for high-risk, low-reward development, its something to avoid whenever possible since it combines the lack of competition of monopolistic or governmental development with the desire of corporations to increase their profits -- this is clearly a recipe for rising costs.
COTS and CCDev operate on a model more like how you and I buy things. The companies contracted this way are being paid a fixed amount and expected to produce. Because this is an expensive field, some of the money is being provided up front (and at certain milestones) in order to speed up development, but even if the final product ends up costing more than NASA pays, we the taxpayer don't pay any extra -- the companies involved will still finish it though because otherwise they don't get paid (assuming they're far enough along at the time of realizing they're going to be over-budget that its still cheaper to finish). After development, it will be a purely pay for service contract, different from getting a Super Shuttle from the airport only in scale. By having multiple competitors and fixed-price contracts, costs and quality will be controlled.
So yes, all previously development was 'commercial' as well. As someone involved in pushing for these "New Space" approaches, I really wish we had picked a better name for it, because the difference is subtle but importantly. Personally, I really like the name COTS because it implies the true goal: to make purchasing flights to orbit as simple as pulling the best competitor for the particular mission 'off the shelf' rather than requesting cost-plus custom solutions.
Re:Don't count your chickens before they hatch (Score:3, Informative)
The hold-and-release launch system they use (which many rockets don't) is what allows them to do this. They light up the engines, do their checks, and then if they're satisfied they release the clamps and launch the rocket. If they don't like what they see, they abort.
From a technical standpoint, a Falcon 9 can operate normally with one engine failure, so they could probably have just shut off the affected engine and launched anyhow. Of course, they'd have no margin for error at that point... And they had no pressing need to launch now, since this wasn't a critical launch (it's not like the astronauts on the ISS are running out of food and will die if the delivery is late)
That said, while Space X touts the reliability of the Falcon 9 due to being able to continue with one engine failure, that only applies to the first stage... The second stage only has one engine. Wouldn't this be a single point of failure? They can suffer an engine failure so long as the engine that fails isn't the one critical out of ten total engines?