Good Luck, Elon and Falcon

Have a great flight, best wishes for success.

I second that. Godspeed to the falcon 1.

It is also nice to see that they are very well informed about the
various possible failure modes: :-)

http://kwajrockets.blogspot.com/

I am a little concerned about the simultaneous filling of the fuels and
the oxidizers.

High winds seem to be delaying the launch.

how did Lockheed Martin do that one?

Alex Terrell wrote:
High winds seem to be delaying the launch.

how did Lockheed Martin do that one?

Latest word on msnbc.com is that a 1st stage tank structural problem
has forced postponement. Happy holidays, eh?

/dps

Damn! Well, better luck next time.

At least this time they learned something about the vehicle, and not
just something about faulty ground support equipment.

Probably it will be like with many other rocket launches. They will
scrub so often that everybody forgets or gives up on them, and then
sometime in march it will launch without anybody watching...

R?diger Klaehn wrote:
Damn! Well, better luck next time.

At least this time they learned something about the vehicle, and not
just something about faulty ground support equipment.

Probably it will be like with many other rocket launches. They will
scrub so often that everybody forgets or gives up on them, and then
sometime in march it will launch without anybody watching...


I wish they would at least *TRY* to look professional. After so many
postponements you are looking really silly and unreliable if you just
keep announcing new ones and canceling them with "oops, we found out
its broken again". Instead of being "100% green for launch with no
outstanding concerns whatsoever" they should be "100% green with no
outstanding concerns whatsoever" before announcing yet another launch
attempt.

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

zoltan wrote:
I am a little concerned about the simultaneous filling of the fuels and
the oxidizers.

No kidding! Why use a new (untested?) procedure on
launch day?

I wonder if the structural issue will turn out to have
anything to do with this last minute change in propellant
loading procedures - which were performed, by the way,
while winds were gusting beyond 28 knots.... (!)

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:

zoltan wrote:
I am a little concerned about the simultaneous filling of the fuels and
the oxidizers.

No kidding! Why use a new (untested?) procedure on
launch day?

I wonder if the structural issue will turn out to have
anything to do with this last minute change in propellant
loading procedures - which were performed, by the way,
while winds were gusting beyond 28 knots.... (!)

- Ed Kyle

Any conclusion on which tank is higher on the first stage?
If they load it significantly and somehow at the same time the lower
tank has lower pressure, and there's high winds... maybe it then
can leak or buckle or something.
I wonder how they spotted this though? Hard to detect a kerosene
leak. Maybe it was lox vapors coming from an awfully wrong place.

And what would have happened if they would have gone ahead...

I think way back Elon Musk said that anything short of a "weather
system with a name" could't stop a launch - I think he referred to
the very robust thrust vectoring.

"Sander Vesik" wrote in message
...

I wish they would at least *TRY* to look
professional. After so many postponements you are
looking really silly and unreliable if you just keep
announcing new ones and canceling them with "oops,
we found out its broken again". Instead of being
"100% green for launch with no outstanding concerns
whatsoever" they should be "100% green with no
outstanding concerns whatsoever" before announcing
yet another launch attempt.

"100% green with no outstanding concerns whatsoever"

What world do you live in?

Personally I would far prefer they slowly and methodically work through
the teething problems without wasting money. Avoiding failure at all
*costs* will result in an expensive and thereby unsuccessful launch
vehicle.

I have concerns that their launch attempt and problem fix cycle is far
too long - largely due to external factors that they did not design to
avoid. Also, spending a long time on the launch pad can not be good for
it.

Pete.