SpaceX and NASA have delayed a demonstration flight of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft to at least Thursday while engineers investigate a possible crack in an upper stage engine nozzle.
The mission had tentatively been planned to launch Tuesday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40.
During reviews of vehicle closeout photos this morning, engineers found a possible crack in the second stage engine nozzle.
If the nozzle needs to be replaced, the first launch opportunity would be Friday or Saturday. Officials called "remote" a possibility that the problem could be resolved in time to fly Wednesday.
During a news conference this afternoon at Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said "porosity and potentially cracking" in a nozzle weld joint was the specific cause for concern.
"We wanted to take some additional steps certainly to go ahead and actually look at it," she said. "We brought the vehicle down to the horizontal this morning. They did some visual inspection. I believe it's back up vertical now and they're doing some thrust vector control system wiggles."
The mission -- the first flying an active Dragon capsule -- is the first under a NASA demonstration program developing the capability for commercial vehicles to deliver cargo to the International Space Station after the shuttle is retired.
The latest weather forecast for Thursday is very good, while it was so-so on Tuesday.
Space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral 
13 comments:
Great catch by the photo reviewer, and good evidence that SpaceX doesn't have "go fever". Woohoo SpaceX!!!
Sorry dude. But that is called an escape. It is considered to be a major screw up. A good quality team with redundancies catches these defects right after the x-rayes are taken. Not one day before the launch. This is not the sign of a quality group it's the sign of a cheaply run company.
Whatever.. you are probably one of those poor souls that got their walking papers from NASA and have be negative at people who still have their jobs...you don't know jack about Space X.
Sorry dude, but the major screw up is finding a significant cracking problem on the ET while it's sitting on LC39 . . .
This is clearly not the sign of a quality group, it's the sign of an high-cost bureaucracy-riddled organization for an over-complex spacecraft that NEVER lived up to it's expectations.
All that matters at the end of the day us that it was caught before flight. EVERY launch vehicle has had to deal with some technical flaw late in its flow.
I agree that this is a good demonstration that SpaceX is not infected with "Go Fever", and takes mission success seriously. Looking forward to watching this bird fly successfully! Go SpaceX!!!
The problem with 3:55 (and a lot of other people) is that they think the only people worried about handing over the keys to U.S. human spaceflight to a private semi-foreign company are those who immediately lose their jobs as a result. NOT TRUE!! Many bright, experienced, knowledgeable and patriotic Americans think the abandonment of the successful NASA model (private contractors doing 90 percent of the work under strict governmental planning and supervision) is a risky, pointless and redundant dead end which -- like outsourcing of U.S. jobs overseas -- will fundamentally weaken our nation. Stop the name calling.
I think you'll find many people that will disagree with your statement, "successful NASA model".
"Sorry dude, but the major screw up is finding a significant cracking problem on the ET while it's sitting on LC39 . . ."
And what is the reason the shuttle is still sitting on the pad?
I have seen first hand how cheap this company is. They use a telemetry dish that is cargo strapped to a rusted, non leveled wood rotted flatbed trailer. Go team. NOT!!!!
@Anonymous 10:08, if it works, and works reliably go for it. NASA's always chasing after the shiney, most over designed expensive crap bells and whistles toys that arent needed to get the job done. The folks working at SpaceX know what is needed to get the job done. Most of the senior personnel have been in the industry for a long time.
@ 10:13... Negative on what NASA always chases. I worked on equipment up there that was old and did not cost much to implement. Guess what? It was reliable, it worked, and was cheap to maintain.
montreal here.
I agree with anonymous from 3 pm
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