The planned launch of the Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral on Wednesday by the United Launch Alliance was called in to solve the valve problem on the launch pad, while the SpaceX team prepared the Falcon 9 rocket for a mile-two mile lift read f southward on Thursday evening. GPS navigation satellite for the military.
After a failed attempt by the ULA’s launch team to fix the valve issue, first with a team of technicians dispatched remotely and then on the seaside launch pad of techn talas 5, at 6 pm EST (2300 GMT) launched the Atlas 5 lunching attempt.
Atlas 5 Rocket U.S. The government’s spy satellite agency, the National Reconciliation Office, will carry a classified payload into orbit for fees. The launch has been designated NROL-111, and the NRO has not disclosed any specifics about Payload’s mission, except that it will assist its agency in gathering and disseminating information to government intelligence agencies.
ULA began counting the Atlas 5 early Wednesday morning, operating the rocket, and proceeding with the guidance system test and other checkouts before loading into the cryogenic propellants launcher at 5:54 a.m. EST (2254 GMT).
“The launch team stopped the countdown clock after responding to an unexpected system from a remote command ground system liquid oxygen oxygen valve,” ULA said in a statement.
“The team continues to analyze the system and will defend our next launch efforts before November 6,” ULA said.
The next opportunity to launch the Atlas 5 rocket will be on Friday, the UAE said. The exact time for Friday’s launch attempt was not immediately announced, but the mission’s start time has moved forward by about four minutes each day. It sets the Friday start time at 5:46 p.m. EST (2246 GMT).
The launch of the Atlas 5 was earlier scheduled for Tuesday, but the ULA returned the rocket to its 206-foot (secret meter NRO payload at the top of the environment control system hose feeding the rocket to its ical hanger near the launch pad to change the atmosphere. -M).
The ground crew returned the Atlas 5 to its launching pad late Tuesday evening in preparation for the launch attempt on Wednesday.
Ahead of the next Atlas 5 launch opportunity, SpaceX plans to launch the Falcon 9 rocket from the nearby Pad 40 during a 15-minute window opening at 6:24 p.m. EST (2324 GMT) on Thursday.
The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket landed on the pad on Wednesday 40 in preparation for Thursday evening’s launch. Pad 40 is located about two miles (2.5 kilometers) south of the Atlas 5 launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
Falcon 9 rocket U.S. GPS3 is preparing to launch the SV04 Navigation Satellite for Space Force, which will replenish the fleet of positioning and timing stations used by billions of military and civilian users around the world.
SpaceX attempted to launch the 2G GPS October GPS Satellite, but the engine problem forced an automatic skip just two seconds before the lift to F.
Engineers investigating the October 2 abortion found that two of the nine first-stage engines on the rocket had a tendency to ignite earlier than expected. Observations showed that the blocked relief valve in the gas generator of the two engines increased the pressure earlier than initially designed, and the sensors on the engines detected the problem and prevented the countdown.
Engineers at SpaceX inadvertently identified the masking treatment as the cause of a countdown left in two Merlin engines the previous month.
“When we looked at the data, we saw that the two engines were trying to start early, and the auto abort,” said Hans Koenigsman, vice president of build and flight reliability at SpaceX. “And in doing so, it prevented potential hard startups that could be harmful to engine hardware.”
The Merlin engine powers up with the help of an igniter fluid called TEA-TEB – or triethylluminium-trithylloboren – which gives a bright green color to the initial PF ignition sequence.
“And then we have liquid oxygen, and we have kerosene, or RP-1 it says,” Koenigsman said in a conference call with reporters last week. “And you need to put this liquid in the right order. If you do this in the wrong order, if you throw liquid oxygen and RP-1 and igniter fluid, then what will happen, we will call it a hard start. “
A hard start will give the engine a “rattle” in most cases, but damage, Koenigsman said. “So in general, you don’t want that. You want a good start. ”
SpaceX sent Merlin engines back to a test site in Central Texas, where investigators found a substance blocking a line leading to a pressure relief valve in a gas generator on two of the engines.
Koenigsman said the vent port, which means only one-sixteenth of an inch wide, was blocked by strict masking lacquer. He said liquid lacquer – similar to red nail polish polish – is used by third-party vendors who anodize aluminum engine parts for SpaceX.
Rogan protects certain parts during the anodizing treatment process, but the seller – who was not identified by the authorities – is believed to have removed the material before sending the components for engine manufacturing to SpaceX.
The gas generator on each Merlin engine operates a turbopump delivering kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants to the main combustion chamber.
Engineers at SpaceX’s Maggregor test site showed that the engines performed normally after removing the obstruction from the vent valve. Koenigsman said the issue was “very subtle, but could clearly have a slightly negative effect on engine performance.”
GPS 3-4- of the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. “The GPS mission will still use the same booster for the first launch effort,” said mission director Walt Luddardell. “The two engines that stimulated the projection study were replaced with issues confirmed by observation and pedigree review that the remaining masking lacquer did not.”
SpaceX and Space Force officials tested all nine Merlin engines on the Falcon 9 rocket, which is ready for flight after test firing on the pads on Saturday.
In addition to rockets for GPS missions, the engine issue has also affected the upcoming NASA launch pair of vehicles. So far, the problem has only affected the mission of using the new Falcon 9 booster.
SpaceX’s crew will begin a half-year journey on the International Space Station with three NASA astronauts and a Japanese mission expert from November 14 for a liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center, the first operational flight of the Dragon spaceship.
SpaceX is replacing two Merlin engines on the Falcon 9 rocket for the Crew Dragon mission, which engineers found suffers from the same initial initial instincts displayed by the engines on the rocket for the GPS mission. The problem is the crew dragon’s launch Oct Oct. Delayed from 31 to November 14.
NASA’s commercial crew program manager Steve Stitch said last week that the agency’s engineers wanted to analyze engine data from a GPS launch before clearing the crew dragon for a liftoff later this month.
The launch of the US-European Sentinel-6 Michael Freelich oceanographic satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California has also been delayed due to an engine problem. That mission was originally scheduled to explode on November 10, but is now set to launch on November 21.
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