SpaceX Falcon 9 : Intelsat 35e : July 5, 2017 : DISCUSSION

[ZachS09]

It's unfortunate that the launch of Intelsat 35e has been scrubbed at T-9 seconds twice in a row.

[GeneBelcher]

For some reason my stream is like 7 seconds slow. Even the rebroadcast of it via spaceflight now was faster. I actually hit F5 and saw Chris G's ABORT post before I heard it on the stream.

Damn it YouTube, 7 seconds is everything!

[old_sellsword]

That was shaping up to be SpaceX's prettiest looking launch to date. Major bummer the media's army of remote cameras never got the chance to capture the scene.

[Lar]

John had commented earlier that they thought they had found and corrected the reason for the abort yesterday. Some engineers must be scratching their heads right about now...

[Joffan]

That  would've been a very pretty sunset launch... oh well

[MattMason]

Well, look at the 2nd scrub this way, US people. I guess we'll have some awesome fireworks for Brexit 1776 tomorrow. #threesacharm

[DaveS]

THIS IS WHY STATIC FIRE IS SO IMPORTANT.  Testing these late abort mode and procedures.

Not really. Shuttle handled these just fine without the need to static fire ("Flight Readiness Firing") prior to every launch. Instead they held countdown sims ("S0044") during every flow on the orbiter rollover to the VAB day.

[edkyle99]

Well, look at the 2nd scrub this way, US people. I guess we'll have some awesome fireworks for Brexit 1776 tomorrow. #threesacharm

This would have been a July 4 launch, UTC.

 - Ed Kyle

[Lee Jay]

The root cause of the abort was found - Elon had his thumb on the red button because he wants to be the one to launch the largest rocket in the country on July 4th.

[Jeff Lerner]

While we're waiting on news for the actual problem....I suppose we could speculate that the problem they identified yesterday and thought they had resolved.....was,not ...

What are the type of,things that would make this launch so Unique??

[ulm_atms]

I think the rocket is afraid of working with no clothes on...

[cppetrie]

While we're waiting on news for the actual problem....I suppose we could speculate that the problem they identified yesterday and thought they had resolved.....was,not ...

What are the type of,things that would make this launch so Unique??

No recovery

[CraigLieb]

While we're waiting on news for the actual problem....I suppose we could speculate that the problem they identified yesterday and thought they had resolved.....was,not ...

What are the type of,things that would make this launch so Unique??

The f9 first stage is not space proven yet.
New vehicles always have a few things to work out.

[ellindsey]

I think the rocket is afraid of working with no clothes on...

The rocket is refusing to launch in expendable mode.  It's demanding to be issued a set of legs and gird fins and a nice safe landing platform for when it returns.

[Oberon_Command]

What if that's literally true? Maybe the software is waiting for some response from the recovery hardware - only there isn't any recovery hardware installed...

[ChrisGebhardt]

For some reason my stream is like 7 seconds slow. Even the rebroadcast of it via spaceflight now was faster. I actually hit F5 and saw Chris G's ABORT post before I heard it on the stream.

Damn it YouTube, 7 seconds is everything!

The actual feed directly on SpaceX's webcast was about 7 minutes behind real-time.  The LD loop I have access to is instantaneous, which helps.

[yokem55]

A little more vague on the reason for the scrub. Any bets on them having the same problem and not wanting to admit it?

[ChrisGebhardt]

THIS IS WHY STATIC FIRE IS SO IMPORTANT.  Testing these late abort mode and procedures.

Not really. Shuttle handled these just fine without the need to static fire ("Flight Readiness Firing") prior to every launch. Instead they held countdown sims ("S0044") during every flow on the orbiter rollover to the VAB day.

THIS IS WHY STATIC FIRE IS SO IMPORTANT.  Testing these late abort mode and procedures.

ULA and Orbital ATK (and probably other launch providers) rehearse abort procedures for every launch and they don't do static fires.

Fascinating that the automatic assumption was that I was disparaging Shuttle (and for the post on the update thread, ULA and Orbital ATK as well).

This is a Falcon 9 mission.  For Falcon 9, this is one of the reasons why the static fires are so important.

Had this been a ULA launch late-count abort, my statement would have been geared toward their practice procedures.  Same with Orbital ATK.  Would there have been an assumption in that situation that I was disparaging Shuttle and SpaceX by not mentioning their abort practice procedures?

I'm not antagonizing, but seriously.  This is a Falcon 9 mission, not a ULA, or Orbital ATK, or Shuttle mission.

[DaveS]

THIS IS WHY STATIC FIRE IS SO IMPORTANT.  Testing these late abort mode and procedures.

Not really. Shuttle handled these just fine without the need to static fire ("Flight Readiness Firing") prior to every launch. Instead they held countdown sims ("S0044") during every flow on the orbiter rollover to the VAB day.

THIS IS WHY STATIC FIRE IS SO IMPORTANT.  Testing these late abort mode and procedures.

ULA and Orbital ATK (and probably other launch providers) rehearse abort procedures for every launch and they don't do static fires.

Fascinating that the automatic assumption was that I was disparaging Shuttle (and for the post on the update thread, ULA and Orbital ATK as well).

This is a Falcon 9 mission.  For Falcon 9, this is one of the reasons why the static fires are so important.

Had this been a ULA launch late-count abort, my statement would have been geared toward their practice procedures.  Same with Orbital ATK.  Would there have been an assumption in that situation that I was disparaging Shuttle and SpaceX by not mentioning their abort practice procedures?

I'm not antagonizing, but seriously.  This is a Falcon 9 mission, not a ULA, or Orbital ATK, or Shuttle mission.

I was just pointing out that static fires isn't the only way to practice countdown aborts. And I guess these two scrubs clearly show that static fires aren't the end-all to launch scrubs inside terminal count. Same thing happened to Discovery on her maiden flight (did a flawless FRF, only to suffer the very first RSLS abort of the program on launch day due to a sluggish valve in the right SSME)

[testguy]

I have built and run test facilities with elaborate software that not only controlled the countdown but operation of the facility as well.  Because things were happening so rapidly many aborts were built into the software because human intervention would have been too unreliable and too slow.  The software necessarily knows why an abort is being called, that is the way it was programmed.  Whever we had an abort in the countdown or operation of the facility,the reason for the abort and the out of tolerance value was displayed on all computer screens for all to see.

I find it hard to believe that the folks at Spacex don't have a similar system. I'm having difficulty understanding why the reasons for the abort are not identified yet.  Perhaps a bad sensor is providing erroneous signal beginning at that point in the countdown.