Apparently the pressure surrounding the SpaceX COTS 2/3 launch early Saturday morning ultimately found an outlet. Unfortunately, it was in the number 5 Merlin engine. According to early reports, a high chamber pressure reading triggered an automatic abort. If further analysis reveals the problem can be corrected by adjusting the sensor’s parameters, then new launch attempt will be scheduled for early on Tuesday morning.
Waiting the Dawn
Waiting on the Dawn
With just over three hours before launch, the main players at the media press site are the mosquitoes
Filed under Space Non Profit News
Falcon 9 Set to Usher in the Dawn of a New Age (literally)
Falcon 9 Ready to Launch
The official sunrise won’t be until 6:30 Saturday morning, but for the 1,860 employees of SpaceX and thousands of supporters around the globe, the curtain goes up on a new chapter in space an hour and half earlier, at 4:55 am. That is when if all goes as planned the Falcon 9 launch vehicle will take off from Launch complex 40 and ascend on the power of its 9 Merlin engines to a rendezvous orbit with the International Space Station.
With an instantaneous launch window of only a moment, there is almost no opportunity for a problem to develop. If it does, new launch windows will occur every third day until the end of May, when the sun’s beta angle precludes further launches for several weeks due to increased heating.
Filed under COTS/Commercial Crew, SpaceX
NASA / Lockheed Martin Showcase Orion
Orion Structural Test Article
Taking the opportunity of the upcoming SpaceX Cots launch to preview coming attractions, NASA and Lockheed Martin gave the space press a chance to take a look at the MPCV (Orion) Structural Test Article. Of particular note was a growing tendency to speak in terms of efficiencies in operations, ranging from large to small. It would appear that the aerospace giant is at least learning to hit the right talking points, but it is a long way from designing better work station arrangements for a building a capsule that will fly perhaps three times in the next ten years to becoming a competitive cost provider on what could be a new emerging paradigm.
Filed under SLS / Orion
Boeing Upper Stage Will Power First Two SLS Launches
It all seems a little too familiar. Nearly 50 years after NASA used the RL-10 engine to power the second stage of the Saturn 1 launch vehicle while work was proceeding in developing the J-2, NASA is apparently once again turning to the venerable engine for the upper stage of the first two flights of the SLS. This time it is work on the derivative J-2X which is being slow walked. In case you haven’t been paying attention to the complete plan, the original version of the SLS scheduled for the first two flights will feature exactly none of the major propulsion components which will supposedly be used in the later versions. 
Filed under Launch Vehicle Development
Senator Nelson Joins the fight for Commercial Crew
Perhaps sensing the potential benefits for his home state. Florida Senator Bill Nelson has come down decisively on the side of Commercial Crew in the ongoing debate. Accordng to an article in Florida Today, the Senate Democrat referred to the House appropriations committee edict to down select to a single provider now as “silliness.’ What once appeared to be solid troika between Nelson, and Senators Shelby (Al) and Hutchison(Tx) in favor of SLS at the expense of Commercial Crew has been splintering as of late. And no wonder, with the Boeing’s decision to build the CST-100 capsules at KSC, Sierra Nevada’s similar announcement regarding Dreamchaser, as well as SpaceX’s reported interest in the Launch complex 39, the space coast has a lot to gain from dual vendor strategy. Could we be entering a new era in which the possibilities of a truly expanded space infrastructure resulting from competition break up the old alliances which kept progress at bay for so long?
Filed under COTS/Commercial Crew
