For the fourth time this week, a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral was stopped on Friday night with seconds left in the countdown, while the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket engine automatically dropped its liftoff with a new GPS navigation satellite during startup sequence.
Falcon 9 rocket U.S. The space force’s next GPS satellite was just two seconds after launching at 9:43 pm on Friday (0143 GMT Saturday) when an automatic abortion countdown stalled.
“Five, four, three,” a member of SpaceX’s launch team called the countdown audio Dio Net. “And we have a half-dress. Is with all agencies. ”
John Inspector, an engineer at SpaceXX who provided commentary on the company’s launch webcast, confirmed that the team canceled the launch effort on Friday night because there was not enough time in the 15-minute window to identify and resolve the issue.
“We landed in about T-minus 2 seconds,” the inspector said on SpaceX’s launching webcast. “We were just starting the engine ignition sequence when we caught up. Then we started (Rocket) Safe. We didn’t enter all nine of Merlin’s rocket engines. “
While it did not appear to have fired the engine, a flash of green light from the base of the rocket indicated that the engine’s TEA-TEB igniter source had recently activated the countdown on the Cape Canaveral complex’s 40 launch pad before the computers shut down.
“The vehicle is being secured from now on,” the inspector said before signing up for the webcast. “There don’t seem to be any problems on the launching pad, but it will end our launching opportunity for tonight.”
When engineers began investigating the cause of the seizure Friday night, the launch team began taking steps to drain its Falcon 9 rocket of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants.
SpaceX had the opportunity to launch an EDT (0139 GMT Sunday) backup on Saturday night at 9:39 pm on the military-operated Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral. But SpaceX has not confirmed whether the teams will prepare for a second launch attempt on Saturday, or if the problem could cause a long delay.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, tweeted that the Falcon 9 launch was halted after an “unexpected increase in pressure in a turbomachine gas generator” referring to equipment used on the rocket’s Merlin main engine.
In any case, forecasters at Cape Canaveral are forecasting stormy weather on Saturday night. In a view released early Friday, they expected an 80 percent chance of unfavorable weather for the launch attempt on Saturday night.
A Lockheed Martin built GPS navigation satellite was ready for liftoff on Friday night over the Fock Can 9 rocket. It is the fourth in a new pay generation of GPS satellites with longer lifespan, higher power and more accurate navigation signals.
The GPS3 SV04 spacecraft is designed to join 31 operational GPS satellites in orbit 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers) above the Earth.
Attempts to launch Friday for the Falcon 9 rocket were carried by the GPS3 SV04 satellite, but the surge echoed similar to the last minute encountered by other launchers earlier this week.
Spanex fired a separate Falcon 9 rocket twice this week on nearby Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, aimed at launching a launch with 60 more satellites for the company’s Starlink Internet work.
But SpaceX canceled a launch attempt Monday morning just 31 seconds before the liftoff due to poor weather. The Falcon 9 rocket was fueled to relaunch on Pad 39A on Thursday morning, but SpaceX retrieved the mission with 18 seconds left in the countdown after finding unexpected data from a ground sensor.
The same Starlink launch was initially scheduled for September 17th. But SpaceX delayed the mission awaiting improvement in sea conditions in the Fasher 9’s Sh Fashore recovery zone, where the drone ship is located in the Atlantic Ocean for the first phase landing of the rocket. Booster.
SpaceX aims to try to relaunch the Falcon 9 rocket with 60 Starlink satellites on EDT (1151 GMT) at 7:51 a.m. Monday.
Musk tweeted early Saturday that SpaceX is launching an “extensive review of launch site, propulsion, structures, avionics, range and regulatory barriers this week” to improve launch availability.
Musk tweeted, “I’ll also be at Cape next week to review the hardware in person.”
U.S. SpaceX’s rival in the launch services market, the United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4-heavy rocket, was also scheduled to explode from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday night. Moments before the Delta 4-Heavy’s three main engines were programmed to ignite, the computer-powered countdown sequencer also stopped launching at the last minute when the clock stopped seven seconds before the lift off.
The U.S. has not announced a new launch date for the Delta 4-heavy rocket, which the U.S. The owner of a fleet of government intelligence collection-spy satellites will pay a classified payload for National Reconnaissance.
The Delta-Heavy rocket also ran a series of delays before the countdown was incomplete on Wednesday night. The ULA announced 26 Aug Gust as the original launch date for the Delta 4-heavy rocket and its NRO spy cargo, but the mission has been repeatedly raised mainly by problems with the Delta 4 launching pad at Cape Canaveral.
After one of Delta 4-Heavy’s three main engines ignited, on August 29th, the T-minus hung at 3 seconds. The ULA found the problem on the pressure regulator on the launching pad.
26 Sept. Engineers renewed the launch pad’s pressure regulators before setting a new target launch date. But the flight was again delayed in assessing a potential issue with the launch pad’s swing arms designed to pull back from the Delta 4-heavy rocket on the lift lift f.
U.L.A. The teams argued with stormy weather during a pair of unveiling efforts on Monday and Tuesday. After clearing the hurricane from the spaceport on Tuesday afternoon, technicians discovered a hydraulic leak on the ground system that turned the launch pad’s mobile gantry into a lift off fun mode, forcing a second canceled launch launch attempt before Wednesday night’s countdown to the last second.
Among the strings of scrubs at Cape Canaveral, another U.S. The launcher was set ablaze in orbit off the island of Vallophones, carrying a cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.
Northrop Grumman canceled an attempt to launch an Entrance rocket into Virginia less than three minutes before takeoff. Officials later blamed Scrub for the issue with ground software, and a second count led to a successful launch on Friday to launch a mission to deliver about પા 10,000 to the space station and deliver experiments.
The Falcon 9’s abortion occurred just 27 minutes before Friday night when the Ants Rocket exploded at 9:16 a.m. EDT (0116 GMT).
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