UPDATE: 10:00am EST 02/19/2017 --- SpaceX successfully launched CRS-10 into orbit, and the Dragon capsule will rendezvous with the ISS in 2 days. The company also managed to successfully land the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket back on Earth. Double success!
UPDATE: 10:26am EST 02/18/2017 --- SpaceX aborted the CRS-10 launch a few seconds before liftoff. In a series of tweets, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk explained that one of the hydraulic pistons controlling the second stage vector control system was acting "slightly odd." Vector control is how rockets steer---If the Falcon 9's was on the fritz, it would not be able to put the Dragon capsule on an intercept course with the ISS once the rocket reached low Earth orbit. Musk added that the system "99% likely to be fine ... but that 1% chance isn't worth rolling the dice." He hopes to make the next launch window for CRS-10, Sunday, February 18, at 9:38am EST.
SpaceX is back, and it's launching your tax dollars into low Earth orbit. Saturday morning will mark the private rocket company's tenth mission to the International Space Station---and its second launch attempt since a Falcon 9 rocket blew up on a launchpad last September.
Saturday's launch will lift off from Cape Canaveral's launchpad 39A, the same slab of concrete used for the Apollo missions. That's a neat bit of ourobouros, especially since a congressional investigation just finished looking at SpaceX's potential to ferry humans to the ISS. The report, released on Thursday, detailed concerns over some cracked turbine fuel pumps---an old issue, already being fixed. But that's not likely to soothe anyone with lingering concerns that this company is struggling to overcome technical difficulties. In the short term, the only real indication will come on Saturday, when the Falcon 9 leaves behind either a swirl of smoke or a smoldering heap of metal.
Late last summer, SpaceX had been riding high on its back to back (to back to back) Falcon 9 barge landings. It was planning to increase its launch tempo, up to two rocket launches a month, and hoped to do a test flight of its anticipated Falcon Heavy rocket. CEO Elon Musk was even billed to speak at a fall conference about his long term ambitions to start a colony on Mars.
But the September 2016 explosion, which destroyed a $200 million satellite, put a limp in SpaceX's swagger. The company paused all launches (and landings) to investigate the mishap. By November, the consensus was that the superchilled oxygen the Falcon 9 uses for fuel had frozen, sparking a combustion.
In mid-January 2017, the company returned to flight, successfully launching (and landing) a Falcon 9 bearing 10 telecommunications satellites. But the small victory was overshadowed two weeks later when the Wall Street Journal broke the report from the Government Accountability Office, an oversight group that directs investigations on behalf of congress. Congress was merely checking up on SpaceX's progress towards building a crew vehicle for NASA. SpaceX's president and COO Gwynne Shotwell shot back at the Journal earlier today at a press conference. "We've known about, and flown with, cracks in the turbine wheel since the beginning of the Falcon 9 program," she says. She added that SpaceX is well on its way to fixing the issue so NASA is comfortable putting astronauts on top of the rockets, not just cargo.
Shotwell also said SpaceX engineers are working on a "small leak" in the second stage of the Falcon 9 scheduled to launch tomorrow at 10:01am. She said they still plan to launch on schedule. But the issue significantly ups the amplitude of fingernail gnawing, because that rocket is topped with millions of dollars in science projects from NASA and the Department of Defense. Those government contracts for ISS resupply missions are some of SpaceX's biggest assets, to the company's bottom line and its reputation. They are also one of the only avenues for the public to get an inner look at the company's operations, because of audits like the one the GAO released on February 16.
Only one other private spaceflight company has secured similar deals with the government: SpaceX's biggest rival, United Launch Alliance. In addition to gear-launching contracts, both companies secured multi-billion dollar deals to develop launch vehicles capable of sending astronauts to and from the ISS---and the GAO report showed that both are struggling to meet their deadlines. SpaceX and ULA were supposed to have their launch systems ready for certification review later this year, but both have delayed their launches until 2018. If the delays reach into 2019, NASA astronauts will have to hitch more rides with the Russians.
The ISS is set to retire in 2024. "The longer the delay is on these commercial launch systems, the less time these companies will have to demonstrate repeated flights to the station," says Christina Chaplain, director for the GAO review. But delays are normal for rocket development programs. Chaplain isn't even that worried about the defects the Wall Street Journal made hay about two weeks ago. "I just think the report itself is not as exciting as the leaked version," she says.
If tomorrow's launch goes off without a hitch, SpaceX will attempt to land the first stage back at Cape Canaveral. With both those successes out of the way, the company could focus more on its longer term goals---launching the Falcon Heavy, finishing work on the crew capsule, and eventually going to Mars---and less on sweeping away the wreckage of the past.
