A particularly shiny new Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket has just successfully lofted the very latest military satellite on Thursday to outer space for the official US Space Force. Elon Musk's very own rocket company has finally been able to launch the third-generation of official military GPS satellites into space after quite a series of delays that happened much earlier.
SpaceX Falcon 9 Delayed Launch
The whole coordinated launch was supposedly set for its initial blastoff some time during the late September but was pushed back a couple of times. It was then close to launching back on Oct 2 but the whole launch was then aborted with just about two seconds left on the countdown clock. Why was this so?
According to an article by CNet, The particularly unexpected issue actually led to a few other delays. This was notably the cause of NASA's own Crew-1 mission which aimed to send an impressive four astronauts straight towards the International Space Station aboard the known SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.
SpaceX Falcon 9 Delayed Launch Cause
The issue was said to be related to something that could possibly crop up the other Merlin engines. A particular investigator was able to reveal that a small bit of "masking lacquer" had been caught blocking one of the relief valve lines. This then caused both of the rocket's nine different Merlin engines to try and attempt to fire much earlier. The suspected engines were then swapped out and another launch date was then released.
As of the moment, the GPS III Space Vehicle 04 is finally on its way to its orbit. The very first stage booster used in the actual launch was seen landing on the drone ship called Of Course I Still Love You over in the Atlantic Ocean just a mere less than nine minutes after the initial liftoff. It is also set to make its very own second flight towards another GPS satellite mission some time in 2021.
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SpaceX's official involvement with NASA, space flights, and etc.
The company is currently expected to be able to recover the said halves of the fairing or the particular nose cone using a few different ships. The very next SpaceX launch is now expected to be the official aforementioned Crew-1 mission for the NASA liftoff that is set officially for November 14.
SpaceX has been pioneering a lot of flights this 2020 and ever since the company has been landing contracts with NASA, the expectations have only been growing in parallel. SpaceX is currently still one of the only privately owned space companies that has proven itself to NASA.
The company works officially with the government space agency with an interesting line of flights lined up for this 2020. The video can be found on SpaceX's official YouTube channel.
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Written by Urian Buenconsejo
