Nasa scrubbed the much-hyped launch of its unmanned Orion spacecraft Thursday morning after a boat, winds and a valve glitch prevented engineers from sending its newest ship deep into space.
Orion was scheduled for a dawn liftoff – 7.05am ET – from Nasa’s base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, but a boat strayed into the launch area with 10 minutes to go in the countdown.
Officials hurried the vessel away and rescheduled the launch for 7.17am, only for strong winds to force yet another delay. Photographers stood by in the growing heat, earthbound spectators watched online, and astronauts streamed the feed from space. All expressed growing frustration as wind delays pushed the launch closer to the 9.44am deadline for takeoff.
Clearly I am causing these launch holds so I'm going to stop tweeting about #Orion
— Reid Wiseman (@astro_reid) December 4, 2014
With four minutes left before a new launch time of 7.55am, Nasa began its “terminal count”, proclaiming “T-4” just before the winds stopped everything again.
With an 8.26am target, engineers started shouting “Go!” over the radio and a three-minute countdown rolled into action – and then two valves on the gigantic Delta IV Heavy rocket failed to close properly. Engineers tried to “cycle” the valves back into proper order and set a final, last-ditch launch time of 9.44am, the end of Thursday’s window.
But engineers ultimately determined the window was closing, with the launch director saying “recommend we scrub for today” just a few minutes before the deadline. Nasa will wait for another opportunity Friday morning.
The Orion mission, although planned to last for just under five hours, has major implications for Nasa’s long-term efforts to take humans to Mars. The flight will test how a six-person capsule fares not just in deep space, but also in the searing temperatures of re-entry through Earth’s atmosphere: about 2,200C.
Once launched, Orion will fly to the farthest point reached by a spacecraft made for astronauts since 1972, when Apollo 17 landed on the moon. Nasa hopes to eventually use the craft to send Americans around the moon, and to land on an asteroid and Mars.
