Live coverage of the launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo capsule on a demonstration flight for NASA.
A pair of cracks in the tip of the engine nozzle on the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage are causing SpaceX to postpone the inaugural launch of its Dragon cargo capsule.
The launch, the first demonstration flight for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program, was set for Tuesday morning. Instead, a decision is expected sometime Tuesday on when to proceed with the launch, which could still come as soon as Wednesday.
The fix may actually be as simple as shaving off the part of the nozzle that has the cracks in it, SpaceX said in a statement released Monday evening. That part of the nozzle, an extension made out of niobium alloy, is designed to increase the efficiency of the Falcon 9 second stage’s Merlin Vacuum engine to permit larger payloads or longer-range missions — a capability that won’t be needed for this mission, intended simply to put a Dragon into orbit for a shakedown run.
One of the cracks was first discovered Monday in a routine check of photos taken during close-out of the rocket. The Falcon 9 was then lowered from the vertical at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40 in Florida to let engineers examine the nozzle up close, and that’s when the second crack was found.
The USAF Eastern Range, the group of East Coast spaceflight launch and tracking sites that includes Cape Canaveral, is available to SpaceX through the weekend.
Technicians examining the crack in the insulating foam that turned up after the launch of space shuttle Discovery was scrubbed Nov. 5 found two underlying cracks in the tank’s metal skin, NASA just reported. The 9-inch-long cracks are on a structure called a stringer, a structural rib that runs the length of the so-called intertank, a ring that separates the part of the ET that holds liquid oxygen from the part that holds liquid hydrogen.
Repairs are expected to be conducted at the pad, but what those repairs will entail, how long they will take — and what impact that will have on the projected Nov. 30 launch date — are not yet known.
A week of launch attempts for space shuttle Discovery’s last mission foiled by technical glitches and bad weather has now turned into at least a month’s delay after a new leak appeared during tanking this morning.
The leak is in a system that carries explosive hydrogen gas safely away from the shuttle to be burned off at a nearby stack. In addition, technicians working to make the shuttle safe to approach discovered a crack where ice could form in the foam insulation on the external tank.
The long delay is chiefly due to an approaching period in which Discovery’s destination, the International Space Station, is at an orbital angle relative to the sun that’s bad for a visiting shuttle.
NASA shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach judged it unwise to try to rush through repairs before the so-called “beta angle cutout” begins early next week. The next available launch time for Discovery is in the early morning of Nov. 30. Read more…
Been away for a while on family business, but there’s a lot going on today. I’ll have a separate post later on the further delay in next week’s planned space shuttle launch. Also, the links are all to Spaceflight Now because I’m having trouble hitting other websites today. That said:
• The newest Progress cargo capsule has arrived at the International Space Station, but station crew member Alexander Kaleri had to take manual control to complete the docking after an unspecified last-minute problem with the Kurs automatic system. Docking occurred at 11:36 am CDT.
• A couple of items from earlier in the week: SpaceX is postponing the launch of its second Falcon 9 rocket and first Dragon capsule at least 10 days to allow for further simulations to be run. The target date is now Nov. 18 for launch from Cape Canaveral, with Nov. 19 and 20 reserved as backup dates.
Meanwhile, NASA is now taking applications for the next round of its commercial crew development program, a $200 million pot aimed at maturing technology. SpaceX didn’t get any of the $50 million in the previous round — Boeing and Sierra Nevada got most of that — but is said to be a contender for this round.
Most of the Texas congressional delegation voted for the Senate NASA authorization bill yesterday, with three exceptions: Republicans Ron Paul and Jeb Hensarling, who voted against it, and Democrat Ruben Hinojosa, who didn’t vote.
The full list, by district:
- Louie Gohmert (R) Yes
- Ted Poe (R) Yes
- Sam Johnson (R) Yes
- Ralph M. Hall (R) Yes
- Jeb Hensarling (R) No
- Joe Barton (R) Yes
- John Culberson (R) Yes
- Kevin Brady (R) Yes
- Al Green (D) Yes
- Michael McCaul (R) Yes
- Mike Conaway (R) Yes
- Kay Granger (R) Yes
- Mac Thornberry (R) Yes
- Ron Paul (R) No
- Ruben Hinojosa (D) NV
- Silvestre Reyes (D) Yes
- Chet Edwards (D) Yes
- Sheila Jackson Lee (D) Yes
- Randy Neugebauer (R) Yes
- Charles A. Gonzalez (D) Yes
- Lamar S. Smith (R) Yes
- Pete Olson (R) Yes
- Ciro Rodriguez (D) Yes
- Kenny Marchant (R) Yes
- Lloyd Doggett (D) Yes
- Michael C. Burgess (R) Yes
- Solomon P. Ortiz (D) Yes
- Henry Cuellar (D) Yes
- Gene Green (D) Yes
- Eddie Bernice Johnson (D) Yes
- John Carter (R) Yes
- Pete Sessions (R) Yes
In a victory for commercial spaceflight advocates, the House voted 304-118 late Wednesday night to approve the Senate’s NASA authorization bill and send it to President Obama for his signature.
The vote came with the end of the current fiscal year breathing hard upon the necks of Congress. That deadline prompted many who would have otherwise favored the House’s own plan, sponsored by House Science and Technology Committee chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., to reluctantly vote for the Senate plan instead — including Gordon himself, who vowed to keep pursuing his desired changes in the still-to-come NASA appropriations bill. (A continuing resolution providing temporary fiscal 2011 funds for NASA and other agencies passed the House later in the night after earlier Senate passage.)
The holdouts were led by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. — the wife of astronaut Mark Kelly, who is set to command space shuttle Endeavour on its final mission, possibly the last shuttle mission ever, in February. Giffords was adamant that the House reject the Senate proposal in favor of the Gordon bill, which offers less funding for and tighter restrictions on commercial spaceflight and more or less continues the Obama-canceled Constellation spacecraft program.
She was the only speaker to oppose the Senate bill during debate Wednesday evening, and immediately followed the bill’s apparent passage by voice vote in a sparsely populated chamber with a demand for a record vote by the full House, delaying passage another hour and three-quarters. Because the bill had been brought up under a suspension of the rules, thus limiting amendment (one of Giffords’ objections to the bill), a two-thirds vote rather than a simple majority was required for passage.
It beat that margin by 16 votes in a roll call remarkable for the yeas and nays being (relatively) evenly split between Republicans and Democrats: 185 Democrats and 116 Republicans voted for the measure; 64 Democrats and 54 Republicans voted against. Five in each party did not vote.
The House vote on the Senate NASA authorization plan should happen sometime this evening — when is uncertain, as there’s a lot ahead of it on the day’s schedule (at this moment, around 2:30 CDT, they’re just now voting on the first bill on the list). The bill is coming up under a suspension of the rules, meaning a two-thirds will be needed for passage. It’s expected to be close. The running text description of floor activity is here; streaming video is available from the House itself and from C-SPAN.
With Friday’s start of the new fiscal year breathing hard on their necks, the U.S. House is set to vote tomorrow on the Senate version of the NASA authorization bill, S 3729. The bill is being offered by House Science and Technology Committee chairman Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., in place of his own bill in an attempt to get something to President Obama’s desk before Friday.
The Senate bill, presented as a compromise between the Obama administration plan turning responsibility for flights to low Earth orbit (LEO) over to the private sector and senators’ desire to keep a government-owned and -run manned space vehicle, has been the one generally preferred by commercial space advocates. They have blasted Gordon’s bill as not providing enough money for commercial space efforts, and for putting too many restrictions on what money there was. The National Space Society is among those urging passage of the Senate plan.
Firmly in the opposed camp is former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, the driving force behind the Constellation program that the Obama administration wants to cancel:
“After considerable reflection, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that NASA and the nation’s space program would be best served if the House were to vote against the Senate Authorization Bill in its present form.
“I have the greatest personal and professional respect for Chairman Gordon, and I understand his decision to consider a poor authorization bill rather than to have none at all. However, as Mr. Gordon himself has noted, the Senate Bill has grievous flaws, for which the best hope is now that they can be fixed during the appropriations process. But this is an uncertain path, and while it is true that the Senate Bill offers some improvement over the Obama Administration’s ill-advised plan for NASA, in my considered opinion it is not enough better to warrant its support in law.
“As happened after the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia, it is time once again to ask ourselves whether we want to have a real space program, or not. If we do, then the Senate Bill won’t get us there. If we cannot do better than that, then I believe we have reached the point where it is better to allow the damage which has been brought about by the administration’s actions to play out to its conclusion than to accept half-measures in an attempt at remediation.”
For the vote schedule tomorrow, keep an eye on the House Majority Leader-issued Daily Leader, due out tonight. More as I get it.
It turns out that not only is the vote on the House’s NASA authorization bill not today, there is no vote at all today. The House has adjourned until Tuesday.
Which means that there will only be three more working days before the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1. This is likely to get… interesting…
The Texas Space Report 