Over at NASA Space Flight, but still no details on just what the issue is. It’s interesting to note that this announcement comes nine years to the day after the launch of the final flight of Columbia. Probably just coincidence
13 thoughts on “More On The Dragon Delay”
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Why would it be anything else but a coincidence?
I didn’t say it was anything other than coincidence. In fact, it says right there — probably just coincidence.
But why even bring it up? In the long history of spaceflight its hard to find a date when nothing happen. Here is a list of things that happened on January 16 in space history.
http://www.astronautix.com/thisday/janary16.htm
Well, I guess it’s good that they’re making sure that everything is in order before they launch. I hope it’s just a few tweaks here and there, and nothing really serious or unsettling.
To say that a lot is riding on this flight would be an understatement. To me at least, this is the most anticipated space launch since the post-Challenger return to flight, if not STS-1 itself.
The suspense is killing me.
My hope is that they’re learning something and figuring out ways to deal with it that will improve their workflow for future launches. Remember, they’re trying to get their flight rate up to previously unachieved levels.
In the heady days after the COTS-1 success, I was all in favor of combining COTS-2 and 3 in a single flight. Now, I think it would have been better to keep them separate. COTS-2 would have already flown by now, and would have identified any problem areas that needed to be addressed.
Did they cancel the third test launch?
IMO, whatever the specific mission objectives are, it would have been best to still do three launches.
Rickl,
But then SpaceX would have had to pay for two Falcon 9 flights, instead of only one.
I’m hoping for a flurry of launches after this one. Maybe a couple Orbcomm and the MDA flight before getting bogged down again in reviews. That’s assuming, of course, that the payloads are ready…usually a big assumption.
It occurred to me that flying another F9 between Dec 2010 and this flight would be a neutral/lose situation for SpaceX. If it was successful, naysayers would say “So what? Three successful flights still isn’t that many” but a failure would give lots of folks amunition.
Last Fall’s “Dry Run” for the final review for this flight was very (to put it mildly) problematic.
SpaceX resources are strained trying to make all the required modifications.
Be interesting to see how long it takes to get ready to try the test flight.
I don’t suppose NASA
OOPS. …will allow them to cut off the cracked pieces and go?
I agree that Elon might have spoke too soon when asking to combine c2/c3 when it might have been better just to fly twice. Now that they too have a standing army, flight rate is much more important. …and now it seems they may have to do a second flight anyway if NASA is not satisfied.
Flight rate is more important for space advocates, not necessarily for SpaceX. She still gets paid for -2 and -3 regardless of whether or not they’re combined.