A space industry consultant believes Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s (SpaceX) ambitious schedule for 2017 after months of being grounded likely lead the company to scrub the Feb. 18 launch, despite overwhelming odds of launch success.
SpaceX spokesman John Taylor on Feb. 21 said the Feb 18 issue was with a backup system in the second stage actuator. Musk said Feb. 18 on Twitter all systems were go and that the movement trace of an upper stage engine steering hydraulic piston was slightly odd.
Musk said on Feb. 18 that the flight would have been “99 percent likely to be” fine if what caused the scrub was the only issue. After delaying the launch for a day, SpaceX successfully launched, and landed, a Falcon 9 on Feb. 19 from pad 39A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., as part of a NASA Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission, CRS-10.
Commercial space advocate and industry consultant Rand Simberg said Feb. 21 that this ambitious scheduled includes a return to a planned flight rate, re-flight of a used first stage for the first time, Falcon Heavy’s possible debut and a potential Dragon 2 commercial crew test flight. While it responded to an initial request for comment earlier in the day Feb. 21, SpaceX did not return additional requests for comment.
Simberg said the company’s scrub, despite the overwhelming odds of a successful launch, came out of an abundance of caution due to a number of mishaps over the last few years. In addition to the September pad explosion, the company said in July 2015 it had a post-launch mishap on June 28, 2015, which SpaceX attributed to an overpressure event in the supper stage liquid oxygen tank approximately 139 seconds into flight. This mishap took place during a CRS mission.
Part of the good news for SpaceX was that the Feb 18 scrub was not related to the Falcon 9 issue that lead to a pad explosion on pad 40 at the Cape in September and subsequently kept the rocket out of business for just over four months. Simberg said a second stage actuator guides the upper stage that carries the payload into its intended orbit following launch and that SpaceX probably has multiple actuators.
“What (SpaceX is) saying is it wouldn’t have been an issue unless something went wrong with the primary actuator,” Simberg said. “(SpaceX) didn’t want to risk the mission. It wasn’t a safety issue on the ground, (SpaceX) didn’t want to fly if the vehicle wasn’t going to get all the way to orbit properly.”
SpaceX said in January that one of three composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPV) inside the second stage liquid oxygen tank failed, leading to an explosion on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Specifically, the investigation team concluded the failure was likely due to the accumulation of oxygen between the COPV liner and overwrap in a void or a buckle in the liner, leading to ignition and the subsequent failure of the COPV.