Space FTW

Launch at 0455 EDT May 19 was scrubbed due to an abort just after ignition in the last seconds of the countdown. SpaceX spokesman at Hawthorne, CA confirmed within a few moments of the abort that because the May 19 launch window is an instantaneous launch window, they are scrubbed for the day. A graphic on the SpaceX feed indicated the next window is on May 22.

This is very slightly surprising since SpaceX has previously demonstrated rapid turnaround of a pad abort and successful launch within a few hours of the original scheduled launch time. However, the requirements of rendezvous with the ISS are clearly such that the launch angle from Canaveral will not be correct again for approximately three days regardless what the team finds in the abort data.

Guess I can go back to bed now.

Back in a September post I mentioned it was likely a Dragon launch planned by SpaceX for November would be delayed, due to (Soyuz-related) problems getting a properly-trained team aboard the ISS. That has since been borne out, and today I checked the very useful resource maintained at SpaceFlight Now’s Tracking Station webpage to learn that currently the next Falcon9/Dragon launch is scheduled for 7 January 2012. This is the COTS 2 contract flight that will now apparently include both rendezvous and docking with ISS, which will be quite a big deal for SpaceX if fully successful.

Note that the page linked above is regularly updated by Spaceflight Now’s staff, and future changes in the launch schedule will be reflected there.

UPDATE: As of 20 Dec, this launch has been delayed again, to Feb 8.

After the tremendous disappointment of Phobos-Grunt earlier this month, NASA has used the present launch window to Mars to send the long-awaited Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory) rover on its way. This is the largest, most sophisticated rover ever sent, and if it reaches its landing site intact, Curiosity should build upon the wonderful successes of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in delivering exciting new data about the Red Planet.

The biggest concern I have is the fact that NASA and its contractors chose to use a complex and unproven landing-delivery system, rather than proven systems used for the various prior successful landers and rovers NASA has placed on Mars. I hate the fact that such a valuable and expensive piece of engineering is intended to be placed by a sky-crane landing system, which when you think about it, seems absolutely crazy. Apparently, this approach was the “most feasible solution” to getting such a heavy rover onto the surface intact.

Well, we’ll see in about nine months. I just really hope all the huge investment in the rover and its instruments hasn’t been wasted due to mistakes in choosing or implementing its delivery engineering.

On a slightly happier note, Curiosity is powered by plutonium batteries, expected to offer power for about 14 years (i.e. plenty, for more than long enough), so there will be no concerns about dust on the solar panels this time around. Oddly, I have seen nothing whatsoever in the media about protests regarding the launch of these batteries, unlike the scene back when Cassini was launched with radioactives aboard. Perhaps the Luddites have grown up, but since we’re certainly going to need these kinds of power sources, as well as better ones, on other probes in the future, I suppose the acid test will be the amount of protest when we finally launch something with a working reactor aboard.

Just last week it occurred to me to look at when this mission was due to launch, but in the press of events I failed to do so. Thus it’s pleasant news today that this long-planned mission has successfully launched, and is expected to reach Mars in September next year.

Phobos-Grunt is an exciting mission for several reasons, one being it’s a resurgence of Russian efforts at Mars. They’ve had a lot more success at Venus… I think not one Soviet/Russian attempt to get a probe to Mars has succeeded. This is a huge disappointment, because the Russian space program is generally quite competent, and because international efforts generally deliver a lot more science: more countries can either fund better-equipped probes, or more of them, and the missions tend to arrive over time, rather than all at once. With international sharing of the data among researchers, the result tends to be that we all get a much better picture of the target.

Phobos-Grunt is an ambitious mission – it’s not actually headed for Mars proper. Its target is Phobos, the larger of Mars’ two moons. The main goal is to determine whether Phobos is fairly solid, or a rubble-pile held together by gravity. That’s a question that could be asked about many main belt or near-Earth asteroids, as well. Making the mission technically challenging, it’s a sample-return mission. After approaching Phobos, landing, and collecting a sample, a portion of the lander will take off and head for Earth, returning home in 2014.

One further fun fact about Phobos-Grunt. Besides cooperation and instrumentation from ESA members, and a life-sciences payload from the Planetary Society, this mission also carries a piggyback probe. When Phobos-Grunt arrives at Mars this year, Yinghou-1, China’s very first Mars probe, will independently enter orbit.

UPDATE (9 Nov 11): And, very unfortunately, the Russians’ Mars “curse” continues. Phobos-Grunt launched OK to Earth orbit, but never fired its transfer engine to head for Mars.

Now if ONLY we had the technology for on-orbit repairs.. oh, wait, we do. Now if only we had cheap launch vehicles available on short notice to send a manned crew to its orbit to MAKE those repairs….

I don’t know about NASA, the ESA, or Roscosmos, but I’d spend a few tens of millions to salvage a mission that cost ten or a hundred times that. SpaceX, there’s another market waiting if you build the capability to get there.

Well, this sucks in about five ways.