A last-minute technical glitch prompted SpaceX on Thursday to postpone for at least 24 hours the first commercial flight of its updated Falcon 9 rocket, a launch vehicle tailored for eventual crewed missions into orbit.
The rocket's onboard computers halted the countdown about one minute before the newly minted Block-5 edition of the Falcon 9 was set to blast off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on its maiden mission, to carry a communications satellite into orbit for Bangladesh.
A few minutes after blast-off was aborted, mission controllers for billionaire Elon Musk's private launch company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, said they would try again on Friday.
They will have roughly the same two-hour-plus launch window running from 4:14pm to 6:21pm EDT (2014 GMT to 2221 GMT) or 2:14am to 4:21am Bangladesh time on Saturday.
State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak also confirmed that the launch was postponed for ‘some reason’.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s son and ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy, who is also among a team of Bangladeshis to witness the launch, said in a Facebook post the launch was aborted just 42 seconds before the liftoff.
“The final minutes of the launch are fully controlled by computers. If the computer finds any measurement is out of normal it aborts the launch,” he wrote.
“This is quite normal for rocket launches as you cannot take any risk,” he added.
State Minister for Information Tarana Halim, who is heading the team of Bangladeshis, also said the computer controlling the final moments of the launch halted the blastoff.
The precise reason for Thursday's automatic shutdown of the final launch sequence was not determined. Launch commanders will have to sift through data logs produced by onboard computers to learn what might have gone wrong.
The Falcon 9 Block-5 comes equipped with about 100 upgrades for greater power, safety and reusability than its Block-4 predecessor.
Its recoverable main-stage booster is designed to be reused at least 10 times with minimal refurbishment between flights, allowing more frequent launches at lower cost—a key to the SpaceX business model.
Enhanced rocket reusability also is a core tenet of Musk's broader objectives for normalising space travel and ultimately sending humans to Mars.
SpaceX so far has safely return-landed 24 of its boosters and reflown 11 of them.
The Block-5 is the first rocket from Musk's California-based company to satisfy NASA's standards for its Commercial Crew Program to carry agency astronauts to the International Space Station. But NASA still requires seven successful flights before the new rocket receives final certification for a manned mission.
The Block-5 will also be used to launch US Air Force global positioning satellites and other high-value, military and national security payloads.
For this week's flight of the new Falcon 9, SpaceX will be launching the Bangladeshi government's first satellite, Bangabandhu-1, into Earth orbit.
Block-5 marks the final version of the Falcon 9 lineup before SpaceX introduces its super heavy-lift launch vehicle, dubbed the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR, which will be designed to send manned missions to Mars.
SpaceX is one of two private companies hired by NASA to ferry astronaut crews to the space station. The other is Boeing Co.
Part of the Procedure
"We're still looking for the cause of the abort," Michael Hammersley, a SpaceX materials engineer, said during a live webcast of the launch attempt.
Sensors on the launchpad and throughout the rocket can throw an abort to prevent any problems, Hammersley said, adding that "these aborts are part of the standard process to make sure everything is working correctly" and that "it's better to have them on the ground than during a flight."
Flight controllers said both the new rocket and satellite, called Bangabandhu-1, were safe. However, they couldn't resolve the problem before the roughly two-hour window for launch ran out of time — so they scrubbed Thursday's attempt.
"We'll be aiming to launch tomorrow during our backup window," Hammersley said.
Before the launch, Musk told reporters that Falcon 9 Block 5 is designed to be "the most reliable rocket ever built." He added: "I hope fate does not punish me for these words, but that is unequivocally the intent, and I think our most conservative customers would agree that is an accurate statement. Please, fate, do not punish me for this — the intentions are good."
Why Bangladesh is important for Spacex
Thales Alenia Space, the company that designed and built Bangabandhu-1, said in a statement that the spacecraft is a "historical first satellite" for Bangladesh.
If successfully deployed, Bangabandhu-1 will bring state-of-the-art phone, radio, TV, and internet service to the nation of more than 160 million people, as well as surrounding countries like Nepal, Myanmar, and Bhutan.
But the 23-storey rocket carrying the satellite is the real star of the mission: the Falcon 9 Block 5 is the most powerful, most reusable, and most likely last version of SpaceX's workhorse orbital launcher.
"The Bangabandhu Satellite-1 mission will be the first to utilise Falcon 9 Block 5, the final substantial upgrade to SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle," SpaceX said in a statement.
SpaceX has launched more than 50 missions on a Falcon 9 rocket since its debut in June 2010.
Engineers have steadily improved the rocket over time, making it taller, shaving unnecessary weight, and giving the engines more power. SpaceX has also added features to enable the rocket's 16-storey booster—the largest and most expensive part, as it makes up about 60 percent of marginal costs—to launch, land, and be reused.
That's a stark distinction from all other orbital rockets in use today, which are used once and then discarded in the ocean.
SpaceX has twice reused a Falcon 9 booster. With Falcon 9 Block 5, however, Musk hopes to expand that to 10 times with only light inspections, and perhaps 100 or more reuses if worn parts get refurbished.
"I think the F9 boosters could be used almost indefinitely, so long as there is scheduled maintenance and careful inspections," Musk said on Reddit in October 2016. "Falcon 9 Block 5—the final version in the series—is the one that has the most performance and is designed for easy reuse."
The reason Musk calls Falcon 9 Block 5 the "final version" is that SpaceX's 6,000 employees are shifting nearly all of their engineering efforts to focus on the company's Big Falcon Rocket.
The two-stage BFR system is expected to be taller than the Statue of Liberty, deliver a 16-storey spaceship into orbit, be fully reusable, and ferry 100 people and 150 tonnes of cargo to Mars. It will ultimately replace all other SpaceX rockets, as it will be relatively inexpensive to launch and reuse—at least in theory.
SpaceX recently got a permit to begin constructing the first BFR spaceships in the Port of Los Angeles, about a dozen miles south of the company's headquarters.
Musk hopes to begin test-launching the first BFR spaceships at SpaceX's Texas facilities early next year.
How to watch it live
Current weather reports suggest the mission has a 60 percent chance of lifting off on Friday, and SpaceX has until 6:24pm ET to launch. If there's another delay, the company may try again on Saturday.
You can watch SpaceX's broadcast of the attempted launch on YouTube. A new livestream should begin about 20 minutes before the launch.
Once the new Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket does launch, its booster is expected to careen back to Earth a few minutes after the launch and land on a droneship named "Of Course I Still Love You" in the Atlantic Ocean.
About 33 minutes into the launch, the upper stage of the rocket should deploy the Bangabandhu-1 satellite into orbit roughly 22,230 miles above Earth.
Reporting by bdnews24 with details from Reuters and Business Insider