A Falcon 9 rocket bought to inside 2 seconds of launching Friday evening in Florida. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann for Ars Technica ]
The countdown clock ticked steadily on Friday evening for a Falcon 9 rocket and reached T-2 seconds earlier than the launch of a helpful International Positioning System satellite tv for pc was aborted. That was the second consecutive time, in simply two days, {that a} Falcon 9 launch was known as off with mere seconds left within the countdown.
An “sudden ground-sensor studying” triggered an computerized abort of a Starlink launch on Thursday at T-18 seconds. And on Friday night, in line with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, “an sudden strain rise within the turbomachinery gasoline generator” precipitated the scrub. The turbomachinery on this occasion pressurizes gasoline coming into the “gasoline generator,” which in flip is a small engine that powers the bigger Merlin rocket engine.
So what’s going on? SpaceX has now launched its Falcon 9 rocket greater than 90 instances, and earlier than this week, current delays have virtually solely been attributable to climate moderately than technical issues with the rocket or its floor techniques.
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