
SpaceX Halts Rocket Launch 10 Seconds Before Planned Liftoff - sillypuddy
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-18/spacex-halts-launch-of-rocket-10-seconds-before-planned-liftoff
======
trothamel
There's an old quote that seems applicable here:

"It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than to be in
the air wishing you were on the ground."

~~~
trothamel
Since I'm embarrassed by how many votes this is getting without any citation,
I'll just point out that I probably first learned about it from something Tory
Bruno (CEO of ULA, the company that launches the Atlas and Delta rockets)
said, seen here:

[https://twitter.com/spaceflightnow/status/776854635055284224](https://twitter.com/spaceflightnow/status/776854635055284224)

This morning, it was posted by Doug Wheelock:

[https://twitter.com/Astro_Wheels/status/832972785152573441](https://twitter.com/Astro_Wheels/status/832972785152573441)

It appears to be said by many people before them, in different forms - I can't
find any information about who first coined the phrase.

~~~
Fuzzwah
This is also a common statement at skydiving dropzones.

------
jballanc
This is far from the closest to launch SpaceX has called an abort. Many may
not remember 3 years ago when they called the abort at T-1 after main engine
ignition:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v0k_0PTLnI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v0k_0PTLnI)

To be honest, though, neither case is really abnormal. There's a whole reason
it's "T-minus" and "T-plus". T-zero is the point of no return (on the STS,
this was when the solid boosters were fired). An abort at any point before
then is still considered normal. Aborts __after __T-zero are anomalies.

(FWIW, even the STS has aborted take-off post-main-engine ignition:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bkYP3pU76I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bkYP3pU76I)
. The main difference between the SpaceX Falcon and the STS is that the Falcon
is capable of re-igniting its engines almost immediately, making a same-day
re-attempt of a post-engine-ignition abort possible. The STS main engines
require a manual reset, making abort post-engine-ignition more costly.)

~~~
hcrisp
It wasn't an abort, but the Mercury-Redstone 1 had a "T-plus" stop time [0].
It attempted to launch and the engine shut down immediately after lift off. It
didn't explode, the escape rocket jettisoned, the capsule deployed its drogue,
and the the rocket settled back on the pad untethered [1]. It came to be
referred to as the "four-inch flight".

After considering some risky ways to deal with the fully-fueled rocket, flight
control ultimately decided to wait until the LOX boiled off. Chris Kraft
declared, "That is the first rule of flight control. If you don't know what to
do, don't do anything."

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-
Redstone_1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1) [1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O4V7JfeTSU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O4V7JfeTSU)

~~~
teleclimber
And if you like stories like that, "Failure is not an option" by Gene Kranz is
a must-read/listen. It seems every single flight of the early American Space
Program was a nail-biter.

~~~
cbanek
When you're responsible for it, or even a part of it, every moment is a nail-
biter. You know exactly what can go wrong and how bad it could be.

------
mabbo
Musk tweeted last night that there was a potential leak issue that might cause
a scrub during the launch. They added an automatic check for the problem, and
it appears that's what caused the scrub.

Since this is a launch to the ISS, the launch window was tiny- miss it by a
second, you've missed it completely.

They'll fix the issue and probably try again tomorrow.

Edit: my mistake, Musk has tweeted that there was another probably-unrelated-
maybe-issue, and they called it off just to be safe. Still, provided the minor
issue doesn't turn out to be something more major, tune in tomorrow at 9:30 am
EST.

~~~
sandworm101
Ars now says that Musk is claiming to have _personally_ scrubbed the otherwise
"green" launch due to irregularities he spotted in a control system for the
upper stage. Not sure we are getting any full story yet. Not sure he has full
a story yet to give.

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/behind-the-scenes-
of...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/behind-the-scenes-of-spacexs-
historic-launch-from-pad-39a/)

Does he literally have a finger on an abort button? I find that very hard to
believe.

~~~
manarth
NASA provided a live video of the launch prep. Maybe an hour before the
launch, the commentator discussed two issues, and said that for both of those
issues, they would make a call on it at T-1 minute.

Later on, the video showed SpaceX launch control center, with a group of
people huddled together talking - I'm assuming they were discussing the
issues.

One of those issues was resolved quite a while before the launch, but not a
lot was said about the second issue - the second-stage engine actuator.

The launch was scrubbed at T-00:00:15. In the SpaceX video [1], you hear
someone saying "Hold hold hold", followed by "Launch abort is started".

If I were to speculate, I'd suggest that the second-stage anomaly went away,
but no-one could explain why. I think the launch was scrubbed, not because
someone said "This will go wrong", but because no-one could say "This will go
right". Even if Musk did personally scrub the launch, it was for an issue that
had been an ongoing discussion for maybe an hour, and that they had already
determined would be a (literal) last-minute decision.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1834&v=V5bG37hzw...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1834&v=V5bG37hzwqk)

~~~
cpayne
Thanks for the link.

I find the people that work on this stuff fascinating!!

To have that much precision (with 15 seconds left, left just stop).

I can right-click and deploy some changes to a production server or run a
database script that has a massive impact on the data.

But to imagine that many movings parts (ie those workers specifically involved
in the launch) and to have those parts all working together. A database change
has a massive impact to "our data". When a launch goes wrong - really puts
into perspective what "massive" really means...

Amazing!

~~~
bpd1069
think...

#> shutdown -h now

------
nether
I just can't get over how terrible an idea a PayPal founder starting a rocket
company sounded. "Good ideas often sound bad," no joke. I was a pretty harsh
critic of SpaceX in its early days (I was an aerospace engineer and have
followed private spaceflight since its inception) and once they got over some
failures and staffing issues, they've really blown me away.

~~~
avmich
Alt-space community laughs about some aspects of "traditional aerospace"
mentality for about quarter of century if not more. It's mostly about their
opinion that rockets somehow are rocket science, pardon the pun.

Given how glacial rocketry progress was by early 2000 it's no wonder people
from outside of the industry were pretty annoyed, not to say more. Elon Musk
isn't exactly alt-space guy - that would closer describe John Carmack or
others - but the effect which he produced on world rocket industry is
nevertheless pretty healthy.

It's probably hard to believe that SpaceX is just a correction to a industry
which got too swamped with status quo. Somebody - may be SpaceX itself - can
actually demonstrate not only reasonable results, but significant innovation.

~~~
nether
Aeronautics is just as stagnant. Whenever news of new small aircraft startup
hits HN though, most comments are negative.

------
M_Grey
The right call was made, yet they still need to start showing that they can
regularly launch without blowing up on the pad, cargo and all. In other words,
this was the right choice in a bad situation.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
SpaceX need to show they can launch frequently, period. Higher launch
frequency with lower reliability is a market that aligns with SpaceX's
commercial customers.

~~~
monochromatic
If I have a hugely valuable payload, why would I entrust it to a company that
has a reputation of launching when they shouldn't?

Scrubbing a launch is a much smaller deal than blowing up and losing the
payload.

~~~
M_Grey
Yeah, I mean they're both undesirable outcomes given a competitive market, but
one is "sub-optimal", the other is a catastrophe.

------
stesch
The webcast showed T - 0:00:13

~~~
mrkgnao
That's what the timer reading froze at, but is that the same as the time when
an abort sequence was initiated?

This is the first time that I saw a livestream where an abort happened, so I'm
curious. Is the timer freeze standard?

~~~
manarth

      is that the same as the time when an abort sequence was initiated?
    

You can watch it on SpaceX' video - the instruction 'hold hold hold" is given
at T-00:00:15, the clock freezes a couple seconds later, and shortly after
that, you hear "launch abort is started".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1834&v=V5bG37hzw...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1834&v=V5bG37hzwqk)

    
    
      Is the timer freeze standard?
    

It's mission dependent. Some missions allow for the clock to be paused, then
resumed [1]. Some missions have prearranged holds [2] built into the mission
plan.

For a mission to the ISS, the launch window is too short to hold then resume,
so a hold on an ISS launch is effectively a launch abort.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_shuttle_launch_countdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_shuttle_launch_countdown)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Built-
in_hold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Built-in_hold)

