{"id":11946,"date":"2020-12-17T22:05:09","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T14:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-scrubs-falcon-9-launch-to-assess-second-stage-issue\/"},"modified":"2020-12-17T22:05:09","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T14:05:09","slug":"spacex-scrubs-falcon-9-launch-to-assess-second-stage-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-scrubs-falcon-9-launch-to-assess-second-stage-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX scrubs Falcon 9 launch to assess second stage issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:&nbsp;<\/strong>Updated at 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT) with delay to Saturday.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_49334\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49334\" style=\"width: 1261px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-49334 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/f9_39a_nrol108.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1261\" height=\"704\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/f9_39a_nrol108.jpg 1261w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/f9_39a_nrol108-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/f9_39a_nrol108-768x429.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/f9_39a_nrol108-678x379.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1261px) 100vw, 1261px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-49334\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket stands on pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday after an aborted countdown. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SpaceX scrubbed a Falcon 9 launch attempt Thursday to evaluate a \u201cslightly high\u201d pressure reading in the rocket\u2019s upper stage liquid oxygen tank, and officials have rescheduled the company\u2019s final mission of the year for Saturday morning.<\/p>\n<p>A sensor reading on the Falcon 9\u2019s upper stage triggered an \u201cauto-abort\u201d at T-minus 1 minute, 53 seconds, as SpaceX counted down to a planned liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center at 9:45 a.m. EST (1445 GMT) Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The Falcon 9 launch team reset the countdown clock to preserve the opportunity to try again to send the Falcon 9 rocket skyward before the end of Thursday\u2019s three-hour launch window. In the end, officials decided to keep the rocket on the ground to allow more time to evaluate the potential problem on the upper stage.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX initially aimed to try again to launch the Falcon 9 rocket Friday, but the company said late Thursday the mission would be rescheduled for Saturday morning to allow additional time for checkouts.<\/p>\n<p>A top secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government\u2019s spy satellite agency, is mounted on top of the Falcon 9 rocket. The mission, designated NROL-108, will be SpaceX\u2019s 26th and final Falcon 9 flight of 2020, exceeding the company\u2019s previous record of 21 launches in a year in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Read our mission preview for details on the launch.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_49335\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49335\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-49335\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/NROL_108_final.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/NROL_108_final.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/NROL_108_final-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/NROL_108_final-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/NROL_108_final-768x770.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/NROL_108_final-678x680.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-49335\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SpaceX\u2019s patch for the NROL-108 mission. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Elon Musk, SpaceX\u2019s founder and CEO, said engineers were assessing a \u201cslightly high\u201d pressure reading in the rocket\u2019s upper stage liquid oxygen tank.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStanding down for today to inspect rocket,\u201d Musk tweeted.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX lowered the Falcon 9 rocket horizontal at pad 39A Thursday evening, presumably to perform inspections on the second stage.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:&nbsp;Updated at 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT) with delay to Saturday. SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket stands on pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday after an aborted countdown. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX scrubbed a Falcon 9 launch attempt Thursday to evaluate a \u201cslightly high\u201d pressure reading in the rocket\u2019s upper stage liquid oxygen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1858,291,479,1656,428,1950,25,1702],"class_list":["post-11946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-b1059","tag-commercial-space","tag-falcon-9","tag-federal-aviation-administration","tag-kennedy-space-center","tag-landing-zone-1","tag-launch","tag-launch-pad-39a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}