After bad weather, liquid oxygen leak stalls Shubhanshu Shukla-piloted Axiom-4 lift-off – The Times of India
CAPE CANAVERAL (FLORIDA): Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s lift-off to Indian space history will have to wait. As D-Day dawned in India, Elon Musk-owned SpaceX announced that the Axiom-4 launch had been indefinitely deferred, citing a LOX (liquid oxygen) leak in the Falcon-9 rocket that engineers were unable to troubleshoot immediately.Axiom-4 was to start its journey to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex-39A at 5.30pm IST on Wednesday. The originally scheduled Tuesday launch was postponed by a day due to adverse weather.“Standing down from tomorrow’s Falcon-9 launch of Ax-4 to the International Space Station to allow additional time for SpaceX teams to repair the LOX leak identified during post-static fire booster inspections. Once complete – and pending range availability – we will share a new launch (date),” Space X said in a statement released at 8.45pm Eastern Time Tuesday (6.15am IST, Wednesday). Hours earlier, it had shared a video of Falcon-9 and Dragon at sunrise and said the weather was 85% favourable for lift-off, with teams continuing to monitor highwinds in the ascent corridor.Installing purge to plug leak: SpaceX Hours earlier, it had shared a video of Falcon-9 and Dragon at sunrise and said the weather was 85% favourable for lift-off, with teams continuing to monitor highwinds in the ascent corridor. Isro chairman V Narayanan said, “… Based on the discussion on this topic by the Isro team with the experts of Axiom and SpaceX it has been decided to correct the leak and carry out necessary validation tests before clearing for the launch.”TOI had reported on June 10 that SpaceX had unresolved technical snags that were detected during a 10-second pre-static test fire. On Saturday, Dragon and Falcon “went vertical” on the launch pad ahead of a dry rehearsal. On Sunday (June 8), SpaceX performed the static fire and began analysing data. “We discovered a few things during the static fire that we had to go take a look at. We found a LOX leak that we previously had seen on this booster during its entry on its last mission and discovered that we had not fully repaired the booster during refurbishment, or we actually didn’t find a leak and didn’t get it corrected,” William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice-president of build and flight reliability, said late Monday.Stating that teams were trying to fix the issue, he added, “We should get that completed today, and we will have that back in configuration, and we are installing a purge that will essentially mitigate the leak.” SpaceX also identified a thrust vector control issue with engine 5. The affected components have since been replaced. Gerstenmaier stressed the company’s continued focus on safety and precision, noting that “space flight is really hard, and we are learning every day”.
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CAPE CANAVERAL (FLORIDA): Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla’s lift-off to Indian space history will have to wait. As D-Day dawned in India, Elon Musk-owned SpaceX announced that the Axiom-4 launch had been indefinitely deferred, citing a LOX (liquid oxygen) leak in the Falcon-9 rocket that engineers were unable to troubleshoot immediately.Axiom-4 was to start its journey to the International Space Station from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex-39A at 5.30pm IST on Wednesday. The originally scheduled Tuesday launch was postponed by a day due to adverse weather.“Standing down from tomorrow’s Falcon-9 launch of Ax-4 to the International Space Station to allow additional time for SpaceX teams to repair the LOX leak identified during post-static fire booster inspections. Once complete – and pending range availability – we will share a new launch (date),” Space X said in a statement released at 8.45pm Eastern Time Tuesday (6.15am IST, Wednesday). Hours earlier, it had shared a video of Falcon-9 and Dragon at sunrise and said the weather was 85% favourable for lift-off, with teams continuing to monitor highwinds in the ascent corridor.Installing purge to plug leak: SpaceX Hours earlier, it had shared a video of Falcon-9 and Dragon at sunrise and said the weather was 85% favourable for lift-off, with teams continuing to monitor highwinds in the ascent corridor. Isro chairman V Narayanan said, “… Based on the discussion on this topic by the Isro team with the experts of Axiom and SpaceX it has been decided to correct the leak and carry out necessary validation tests before clearing for the launch.”TOI had reported on June 10 that SpaceX had unresolved technical snags that were detected during a 10-second pre-static test fire. On Saturday, Dragon and Falcon “went vertical” on the launch pad ahead of a dry rehearsal. On Sunday (June 8), SpaceX performed the static fire and began analysing data. “We discovered a few things during the static fire that we had to go take a look at. We found a LOX leak that we previously had seen on this booster during its entry on its last mission and discovered that we had not fully repaired the booster during refurbishment, or we actually didn’t find a leak and didn’t get it corrected,” William Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice-president of build and flight reliability, said late Monday.Stating that teams were trying to fix the issue, he added, “We should get that completed today, and we will have that back in configuration, and we are installing a purge that will essentially mitigate the leak.” SpaceX also identified a thrust vector control issue with engine 5. The affected components have since been replaced. Gerstenmaier stressed the company’s continued focus on safety and precision, noting that “space flight is really hard, and we are learning every day”.
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