The private
spaceflight firm Space
Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) will have to wait at least one more day
to launch its second
Falcon 1 rocket after a last-minute glitch prevented a Monday attempt.
A launch range
telemetry issue cropped up less than two minutes before the Falcon 1 rocket's
planned 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 GMT) liftoff, prompting the booster to
automatically halt its launch procedures, SpaceX officials said. The launch is
now targeted for no earlier than Tuesday at about 7:00 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT),
they added.
"The vehicle
basically self-aborted," Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's vice president for business
development, told reporters after the glitch.
Shotwell
said that about 90 seconds before liftoff, flight controllers typically shift their
communications with the Falcon 1 rocket from a land line system to a range
radio frequency (RF) at SpaceX's Omelek
Island launch site on Kwajalein Atoll, which is located in the Marshall Islands
on the Pacific Ocean.
"It's
possible that we were not picking up the range RF signal," Shotwell said.
SpaceX has
daily opportunities to launch the Falcon 1 rocket through March 22, with each
day offering a four-hour flight window that opens at about 7:00 p.m. EDT (2300
GMT), the El Segundo, California-based firm has said.
The planned
space shot, dubbed DemoFlight 2, is a demonstration mission for the U.S.
Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA), which funded SpaceX's ill-fated
Falcon 1 launch debut on March 24, 2006. Since that first unsuccessful
test, engineers have made a series of rocket
and ground support equipment improvements to prevent similar mishaps on
future flights, SpaceX
CEO Elon Musk has said.
Monday's
launch attempt was initially targeting a 7:00 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) liftoff, but
a telemetry relay glitch between SpaceX's Kwajalein Atoll site and
California headquarters prompted a 45-minute delay.
SpaceX's
Falcon 1 rocket is a two-stage booster designed to haul payloads of up to 1,256
pounds (570 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit for about $7 million per flight.
The rocket's reusable first stage is powered by SpaceX's home-grown Merlin 1 engine
and designed to make a parachute landing in the Pacific Ocean after separation
for later recovery and refurbishment.
Riding
aboard the current Falcon 1 rocket is a 110-pound (50-kilogram) package including
two experiments -- an autonomous flight safety system and a low-cost tracking
and data relay satellite transmitter -- as well as mechanical adapter designed
to connect satellite payloads with the booster's second stage.
DemoFlight
2 is the first of at least three Falcon 1 missions scheduled for 2007. For those subsequent flights, SpaceX is preparing to launch the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory's TacSat-1
satellite this summer, and loft the Malaysian Earth-observation satellite Razaksat
later in the year.
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