As per latest news, U.S. historical launch of SpaceX Dragon ship, the first unmanned commercial spacecraft to the International Space Station has been delayed by at least three days.
The American SpaceX led by billionaire Elon Musk’s mission to make history by sending Dragon with the station was aborted just a half second ahead of the countdown to launch the company’s Dragon capsule carried by its Falcon rocket on yesterday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
It has been said that this caused because of an engine pressure problem in one of the nine engine combustion chambers and now the new flight may seems to hit on Tuesday or Wednesday.
“The engine controller noted high chamber pressure in engine five; software did what it was supposed to do – aborted engine five, and then we went through the remaining engine shut-down,” SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell told reporters.
Further added, “We need to lift off with all nine, which is why we aborted. You can lose up to two engines and still make your mission, just not at lift-off.”
However unmanned mission have launched by U.S. government, but U.S. NASA dismissed to use its owned vehicles last year in wake to save money and spent that on exploration missions far beyond Earth, to asteroids and Mars.
For succession of the launch, billion-dollar contracts has been given by NASA to Space X that joined with another private firm, Orbital Sciences Corp, to keep the space station stocked with supplies, source said.
SpaceX that designed Dragon ship with the Falcon rocket, meanwhile, aimed its freight service to carry people- ferry astronauts to and from the ISS. It also is doing another Nasa programme to develop the onboard life-support and safety systems, to make flight feasible.
When one reporter asked that whether mission was failed, Shotwell said, “This is not a failure” by adding, “We aborted with purpose. It would be a failure if we were to have lifted off with an engine trending in this direction.”
All in All, if everything will be going as per expectation with setting as Nasa‘s satisfaction, Space X will gain a lot along with $1.6bn re-supply contract with the agency, otherwise fall the company’s aims forcefully.
