The countdown clock for the Falcon 9 rocket was a constant tick on Friday night and it reached T2 seconds before the launch of the valuable Global Positioning System satellite. It was only the second time, in just two days, that the Falcon 9 was released with only seconds left in the countdown.
“Unexpected ground-sensor readings” began to be automatically excluded from the Starlink launch in T-18 seconds on Thursday. And on Friday evening, according to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, an “unexpected increase in pressure in the turbomachine gas generator” caused the bush. This situation forces the turbomachine gas to enter the “gas generator”, which in turn is a small engine that powers a large Merlin rocket engine.
So what’s up SpaceX has now launched its Falcon 9 rocket more than 90 times, and earlier this week, the latest delays were almost entirely due to weather rather than technical problems with the rocket or its ground systems.
Musk obviously wants to know that too. After the back-to-back scrubs, he announced on Twitter that he would visit the company’s two launch sites in Florida: one at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (Friday night’s scrub site) and one at the Kennedy Space Center (where the Starlink mission awaits another launch attempt. ).
Visit next week
Kasturi wants SpaceX to increase its cadence as it reaches 48 launches in 2021, more than double the company’s previous record for the total number of missions in a year. Tech scrubs like the ones this week will prevent this. Receiving frequent launches will require easy operation.
“We are conducting an extensive review of the launch site, propulsion, structures, avionics, range and regulatory barriers this week.” Kasturi tweeted. “I’ll also come to Cape next week to review the hardware in person.”
The visit is significant, as Musk will now spend most of his time in Boca Chika, Texas, working on the company’s next pay generation launch system, Starship. Now, he will focus on the Falcon 9 for a while.
This will make a difference, as Kasturi actually serves as both the chief executive of SpaceX as well as its chief engineer. In his executive conference room at the SpaceX factory in H. Thorney, California, or in a large room in Boka Chika, he leads the discussion at all senior technical meetings.
It has always been and remains the animating force behind the technical excellence of SpaceX. When the musk is somewhere, things are done. It’s constantly moving forward, asking why things can’t get faster or better or cheaper. It’s good at encouraging employees to meet unlikely deadlines. So coming to Florida, Musk lends his technical skills to remind his starting team of his expectations as well as the numerous challenges of launching a rocket on time.
SpaceX should have its next chance soon. The company’s Starlink-12 mission will now delay twice (once due to bad weather and once due to ground systems issue) to launch EDT (11:46 UTC) on Monday, October 5 at 7:46 am. We will see great with great interest.
Image list by Trevor Mahalman for Aras Technica
