WASHINGTON – NASA is delaying the launch of a marine science satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket, but says the delay will not affect the launch of another Falcon 9 of the commercial crew mission.
The agency announced November 3. It was delaying the launch of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freelich satellite on Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California from November 10 to 21. To give SpaceX time to replace the two engines in the first phase of the rocket, the agency said.
Falcon 9 GPS The performance of the Falcon 9’s Merlin engines was checked seconds after the launch abort first before the scheduled lift of the Falcon 9, which has 3 satellites. To protect the components of the engine when it is anodized for corrosion protection. By blocking the relief valve in the gas generator of one of the Merlin engines in the phase, the lacquer was not properly cleaned after anodizing.
In a Oct. 28 briefing, NASA said it is replacing two Merlin engines in the Falcon 9 booster that will currently launch the Crew-1 commercial crew mission, which is currently scheduled for November 14 from the Kennedy Space Center. At the time he said he was replacing the Falcon 9 with an engine in the first phase for the Sentinel-6 Michael Freelich, but he was still inspecting the engines on that booster.
Prior to the briefing, NASA indicated that the Sentinel-6 launch would be the first, and would review launch data before deciding to proceed with the NASA Crew-1 mission. But in that briefing, agency officials said Crew-1 did not have to wait for the Sentinel-6 launch. “Currently, there is no hard line between these missions,” said Kathy Luders, NASA’s associate administrator for human research and operations. “We’re both flying missions when it’s the right time.”
Instead, agency officials said they wanted to see the first GPS 3 launch. “In the first phase there’s a slight change in the engine we’re installing that we’ll see flying over the GPS 3 mission,” said Steve Steich, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program. “We would love to see the crew fly a mission before flying.”
At the time of the briefing, SpaceX had not yet set a timetable for the GPS 3 launch. However, after a successful steady-fire test of the booster on October 31, SpaceX announced that the launch would now resume on November 5.
NASA said in a statement regarding the delay in the launch of the Sentinel-6 that the crew-1 mission is due on November 14. The four-person crew entered the prelaunch quarantine on October 31, and will travel to the final Kennedy Space Center. Prelaunch preparations 8 Nov.
