SpaceX Delays Dragon Cargo Ship Launch Due to Rocket Helium Leak

[Buster's Uncle]

SpaceX Delays Dragon Cargo Ship Launch Due to Rocket Helium Leak
SPACE.com
by Mike Wall, Senior Writer  April 14, 2014 4:53 PM



SpaceX's fourth space station-bound Dragon uncrewed capsule is seen poised atop the company's Falcon 9 rocket at Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, April 14, 2014.



SpaceX called off the planned launch of a commercial cargo ship bound for the International Space Station for NASA Monday (April 14) due to a helium leak on the company's Falcon 9 rocket that will keep the mission stuck on Earth until at least Friday (April 18).

The private spaceflight company's unmanned Dragon spacecraft was counting down toward a liftoff at 4:58 p.m. EDT (2058 GMT) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. But the attempt was scrubbed about an hour before launch due to the helium leak.

"Todays launch has been scrubbed due to a helium leak on Falcon 9's first stage," SpaceX officials announced in an update today. "A fix will be implemented by the next launch opportunity on Friday April 18, though weather on that date isn't ideal."

Today's scrub follows two earlier delays that have already pushed the next Dragon launch by more than a month.

SpaceX initially hoped to launch the mission on March 13, but the company delayed it by about two weeks to tie up a few loose ends. The launch was pushed back again, to mid-April, when a fire damaged a ground-based radar system used to track liftoffs from Cape Canaveral.

The upcoming mission will be the third of 12 Dragon delivery missions to the space station by California-based SpaceX under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. SpaceX launched its first cargo run to the station in 2012. Another company, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., has a $1.9 billion contract for eight cargo missions — the first of which launched in January — using its own Antares rockets and Cygnus spacecraft.

The weather forecast on Friday predicts only a 40 percent chance of good launch conditions, but SpaceX officials plan to complete helium leak repairs in time to make a second launch attempt this week.

SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft is packed with nearly 5,000 lbs. (2,268 kilograms) of food, scientific experiments and other supplies for the space station. That cargo includes some intriguing items, including legs for NASA's humanoid robot Robonaut 2 and a miniature farm that should let astronauts grow lettuce in space. Dragon is also toting a NASA laser-communication experiment called OPALS (Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science).

While cargo delivery is the primary aim of the mission, SpaceX also hopes to return the Falcon 9's first stage softly to Earth to help develop and demonstrate reusable-rocket technology, which company officials say could dramatically reduce the cost of spaceflight down the road.

The first stage is even equipped with four 25-foot-long (7.6 meters) landing legs to help steady its descent toward the Pacific Ocean, where SpaceX hopes to retrieve it by boat.

Company officials don't necessarily expect the reusability test to succeed but say they'll learn a lot from the experiment, whatever happens.

"The entire recovery of the first stage is entirely experimental," SpaceX vice president of mission assurance Hans Koenigsmann told reporters Sunday (April 13). "It has nothing to do with the primary mission here."


http://news.yahoo.com/spacex-delays-dragon-cargo-ship-launch-due-rocket-205339754.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Rocket leak delays space station delivery launch
Associated Press
By MARCIA DUNN  22 hours ago



NASA decided Sunday to stick with the planned launch of the SpaceX cargo ship, despite a critical computer outage at the space station.Liftoff is scheduled for 4:58 p.m. Monday from Cape Canaveral. (April 13)



CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A space station cargo ship will remain Earthbound for a while longer because of a rocket leak.

With just over an hour remaining, the SpaceX company called off Monday's planned launch. Officials said they believe the problem can be fixed by Friday, the next opportunity for flying and the last chance before astronauts do urgent spacewalking repairs.

A helium leak in the first-stage of the unmanned Falcon rocket forced a halt to the countdown, the latest delay spanning the past month.

Over the weekend, NASA almost postponed the launch attempt because of a computer outage at the International Space Station. But mission managers decided Sunday that everything would be safe for the arrival of the Dragon capsule and its 2½ tons of supplies.

The computer, a critical backup, failed outside the space station Friday as flight controllers were trying to activate it for a routine software load. The primary computer has been working fine.

It's the first breakdown ever of one of these so-called space station MDMs, or multiplexer-demultiplexers, used to route computer commands for a wide variety of systems. Forty-five MDMs are scattered around the orbiting lab. The failed one is located outside and therefore will require spacewalking repairs.



In this image made available from a video by NASA TV shows the SpaceX Falcon rocket on the launch pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., Monday, April 14, 2014. The unmanned SpaceX rocket carries the Dragon capsule, which is full of supplies and is expected to dock with the International Space Station later this week. (AP Photo/NASA TV)


The Dragon capsule holds a gasket-like material for next week's computer replacement. This new material was rushed to the launch site over the weekend and loaded into the Dragon. NASA said astronauts can make the repair without it if necessary.

NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Steven Swanson will perform the spacewalk next Tuesday — regardless of whether the Dragon flies by then. It will take several days to get the replacement computer ready, thus the one-week wait before the job, NASA's Kenny Todd, a station operations manager, said Monday.

SpaceX — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of California — is one of two American companies hired by NASA to fill the cargo gap left when the space shuttles retired in 2011. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Virginia is the other.

If the SpaceX Dragon isn't flying by Friday, the company may have to get in line behind Orbital, on track for a May delivery run from its Virginia launching site.

The Dragon should have soared in mid-March, but SpaceX needed two extra weeks of launch prepping. Then an Air Force radar-tracking device was damaged in a fluke accident; an electrical short caused the instrument to overheat.



In this photo provided by NASA, astronaut Rick Mastracchio works to replace a pump in a spacesuit, Monday, April 14, 2014, aboard the International Space Station. SpaceX called off a launch to the space station on Monday, April 14, 2014, because of a rocket leak. Officials said they believe the problem can be fixed by Friday, the next opportunity for flying and the last chance before astronauts do urgent spacewalking repairs. (AP Photo/NASA)


Monday's helium leak apparently came from a system that separates the first-stage during the first few minutes of flight.

Earlier in the afternoon, SpaceX signed a 20-year lease with NASA to take over the launch pad used during the Apollo and shuttle programs. Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39-A would be used for SpaceX launches with astronauts bound for the space station in three or four more years, if NASA approves the venture. Russia currently provides the only way to get astronauts to and from the space station.

Unmanned missions also are slated for this pad, possibly next year.

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Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/


http://news.yahoo.com/rocket-leak-delays-space-station-delivery-launch-201724518.html