Second SpaceX Static Fire Test Aborted; Third Attempt Possible Today
SpaceX tried again this morning, Saturday, to conduct a static fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket in advance of a scheduled orbital launch next week. The first attempt was aborted yesterday at T-1.1 seconds because of high chamber pressure in one of the nine Merlin engines that power Falcon 9. The test this morning was aborted at 9:30 am; SpaceX engineers are troubleshooting the problem and may try again later today according to SpaceflightNow.com, which is covering the test live. The window is open until 3:00 pm.
The orbital launch, scheduled for December 7, is part of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to assist SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp develop launch vehicles and spacecraft to service the International Space Station (ISS). NASA has a pre-launch press conference scheduled for Monday at 1:30 pm EST that will be carried on NASATV.
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