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Post Info TOPIC: Falcon 1 rocket


L

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RE: Falcon 1 rocket
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The fluctuating wind conditions at the launch site are now above the allowable limit for lift-off.
Earlier, the winds were reported to be 7 knots. The 24-knot constraint is in place to ensure stiff winds don't force the rocket to drift into its pad structure at launch.

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L

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T minus 5 minutes

The countdown has gone into hold.

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L

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T minus 8 minutes.

There seems to be a slight problem with the radio link.

Fuelling of both stages with RP-1 fuel has been completed.

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L

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T-minus 10 minutes and counting.


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L

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T-minus 15 minutes and counting.
All systems Go.

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L

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All systems have passed their prelaunch checkout and the Falcon one is ready for launch 19:00 GMT, today.



The hold down firing countdown will begin at T minus 3 hours.

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L

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The Falcon 1 rocket launch is scheduled for 19 December at 19:00 GMT.

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L

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The new launch date is around December 19-20, depending on when the Missile Defense Agency testing is complete.

Liquid oxygen (LOX) supplies will be enough on hand this time to fill the rocket four or five times over. This should account for almost any issue with a particular storage tank as well as an extended hold on the pad.
SpaceX has chartered a C-17 to fly two of their empty high quality LOX containers to Hawaii, sourced another high quality LOX container on Hawaii and put all three on the barge to Kwajalein. In addition, their LOX plant on Kwajalein has been repaired and is producing LOX on island again.

SpaceX ran out of LOX on the remote tropical island on the last launch attempt because of several issues:

* The additional month of Merlin testing resulted in additional LOX boil-off on island. Even though it is stored in vacuum jacketed containers, LOX at -300F degrees does not like being on a tropical island at 85F.
* The SpaceX LOX plant on island broke down a few weeks prior to launch, which meant they could not top up.
* They ordered replacement LOX from Hawaii, but the container quality was poor, so only 20% of what they ordered actually arrived.
* Ground winds were unusually high on launch day, which amplifies the boil-off rate significantly, since the Falcon's first stage LOX tank is uninsulated.
* All of the above would not have mattered if the final storage tank did not have a small, manual vent valve incorrectly in the open position. Somewhat agonisingly, they were only a few percent away from being full.
* After a while, they were able to close the vent and fill the vehicle's LOX tanks. However, they use LOX to chill the onboard helium and the absence of ground LOX to do so resulted in the helium heating up and venting back to storage. In the end, they did not have enough LOX to stay filled on the rocket and chill & pressurise the helium.

The engine computer reboot anomaly was definitively traced to a ground power problem. Importantly, this would have had no effect on flight, since they switched to vehicle power before the autosequence began. The reason it cropped up at Kwajalein was that the higher load on the longer umbilical (three times longer than in prior tests) coupled with high temperatures in Kwajalein resulted in increased resistance in the ground umbilical. This was just enough to lower the voltage below minimums and cause an engine computer reset when drawing maximum power. The same max power test was repeated on internal vehicle batteries with no problem at all.

This problem has been solved by slightly increasing voltage on the ground umbilical.

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L

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Falcon 1 launch
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SpaceX now hopes to make its first orbital flight on December 19th, the first day of a three-day launch window.

The pencilled in date is dependent on a missile defence test that will be preformed ahead of the launch. The range will shut down for Christmas on December 22.
The next launch window available if they do not manage this launch date is in January 2006.

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L

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Date:
RE: Falcon 1 rocket
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Statement from SpaceX :



“The SpaceX launch scrubbed today. We anticipate a new launch attempt in mid-December, depending on the timing of LOX resupply from Hawaii (our LOX plant on Omelek can only produce about one ton per day). As SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated during a pre-launch press conference, the likelihood of an all new rocket launching from an all new launch pad on its first attempt is low.
The reason for the delay was an auxiliary liquid oxygen (LOX) fill tank had a manual vent valve incorrectly set to vent. The time it took to correct the problem resulted in significant LOX boiloff and loss of helium, and it was the latter that caused the launch abort. LOX is used to chill the helium bottles, so we lose helium if there is no LOX to cool the bottles.

Although we were eventually able to refill the vehicle LOX tanks, the rate at which we could add helium was slower than the rate at which LOX was boiling away. There was no way to close the gap, so the launch had to be called off. In addition, we experienced an anomaly with the main engine computer that requires further investigation and was arguably reason in and of itself to postpone launch.”

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