Posted on 01/31/2022 5:42:45 AM PST by billorites
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — SpaceX scrubbed its fourth attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket after a cruise ship entered a hazard area in Cape Canaveral.
6:20 p.m. update:
SpaceX halted its countdown at 33 seconds after a cruise ship entered a hazard area that needs to be clear for safety.
Captain Francesco Schettino back in the driver’s seat?..........................
I cannot even imagine this!!!!
No doubt prolly cost Musk 100,000 thou or so,
This was so stupid!!!!
They were down to the count!.....my husband and I ran out the front door to watch!.....nighttime launches are spectacular!
Then we realized something was wrong.
When we heard what happened we were gobsmacked!
This just doesn’t happen.
Cruise ships know better.........they have been using this port for many many years!
Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if somebody with a grudge against Musk PAID the ship to disrupt the launch. [/tinfoilhat]
Ship owners will be paying out for the fine imposed on vessels that defy an exclusion zone. It is not a request.
Former Captain Francesco Schettino...serving a 16-year sentence.
I have the same tinfoil.....
...after all, , Elon DID support the Truckers quite publicly!!
I don’t think anything, much less a cruise trip, has prevented launches before
It’s gonna be a hefty one, too.
My first thought also.
Back in February 1987 I was out at Vandenberg AFB with a Task Force to launch an unarmed Minuteman III ICBM. We were supposed to turn keys mid afternoon but the Coast Guard and US Navy had to chase a Soviet submarine and a Soviet Trawler out of the danger zone. We didn't turn keys until 0130L the next day as they played cat and mouse with that sub.
‘they’ are doing everything they can to slow him down ..
"This time, however, rather than the poor weather that aborted Falcon 9’s first three launch attempts, the fourth scrub was caused by a cruise ship fouling the range and trespassing inside a US Coast Guard keep-out zone that’s been public for the better part of a week."
"By all appearances, the ship responsible appears to have been Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas, which was headed straight into the Coast Guard’s keep-out-zone about 20 minutes before liftoff and veered south – away from the zone – around 10 minutes later. However, that’s not certain as a large number of cruise ships operate in or around the southeasterly corridor Falcon 9 was scheduled to overly between Florida and the Bahamas, making it possible that a different ship was at risk of entering the keep-out zone dozens to hundreds of miles downrange."
"While just a part of rocketry, this scrub was particularly annoying because it came on a day with near-perfect weather after three consecutive weather-related scrubs. The US military’s 45th Space Wing had also explicitly warned boaters and the general public of the unusual southerly launch trajectory and encouraged them to double-check exclusion zones. Further, had Falcon 9 been able to launch, perfectly clear skies and a liftoff scheduled about 15 minutes after sunrise could have created a spectacular light show visible for one or several hundred miles in every direction as Falcon 9 rose back into direct sunlight. The weather forecast on CSG-2’s backup window (6:11 pm EST, Jan 31) still predicts excellent conditions but clear skies are never guaranteed."
"Ultimately, a fouled range – and, in general, any non-technical launch delay – is just an inconvenience for SpaceX and its customer. Nonetheless, each scrubbed launch likely costs the company several hundred thousand dollars and wastes hundreds or even thousands of work-hours. Additionally, given SpaceX’s plans for as many as 52 Falcon launches this year, a few days of delays can quickly become a significant issue if repeated multiple times. With any luck, that won’t be the case and CSG-2’s fouled-range delay will be just a fluke for SpaceX and the Florida launch range."
"Thanks to the cruise in question, SpaceX now appears likely to have a Falcon 9 launch scheduled on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday (Jan 31, Feb 1, and Feb 2). CSG-2 continues to target a 6:11 pm EST (23:11 UTC) liftoff – just on January 31st, this time around. SpaceX will likely delay Starlink 4-7 another 24 hours, pushing the mission to sometime around 2pm EST (19:00 UTC), February 1st. Last, Falcon 9 remains on track to launch the NROL-87 spy satellite mission remains around 12:18 pm PST (20:18 UTC), February 2nd. There’s a possibility that Starlink 4-7 is now NET February 3rd but that has yet to be confirmed. Beyond those three missions, SpaceX has as many as three more Starlink missions tentatively planned for February after NROL-87."
The new, woke Coast Guard is on the job...
They accidently cleared a “no-go” zone off the coast of NJ by mistake...
Monday January 31’s launch was amazing!
Rocket followed the coast south and almost directly overhead of we folks in the Treasure Coast. After 5 minutes or so, we could hear the rumble of the engines 70 miles away, then about 5 minutes later the roar of the first stage returning to the Cape.
Strange that you say this.......
....we were watching from a few miles away, on the Space Coast
It launched beautifully, but in a few minutes it looked like it was doing a ‘Challenger’......
So we ran into the house...
...and lo and behold, they were saying it was a beautiful launch and everything was great??.
I wanted it to be great, for Musk sake.....
....but it was odd
Yeh, I have a photo of that blast of the first stage separation. It was different
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