SpaceX resupply mission to International Space Station aborted, will try again tomorrow

[Shawn Knight]

SpaceX on Saturday was scheduled to launch a Dragon spacecraft into orbit on the back of a Falcon 9 reusable rocket. The mission, a supply run for NASA to the International Space Station, lifted off a day later without incident.

The original plans called for the Dragon capsule to rendezvous with the ISS early Wednesday morning. As outlined in a NASA blog post, at 3:25 a.m. ET, the spacecraft’s onboard computer triggered an abort after recognizing an incorrect value in navigational data regarding its location relative to the space station.

NASA spokesperson Rob Navias, as per the LA Times, said the Dragon capsule was about seven-tenths of a mile below the space station and heading toward its final approach when the abort command was triggered. As such, the Dragon capsule was sent on an alternate path that’ll see it try once again on Thursday.

Both SpaceX and NASA confirmed that the spacecraft is in excellent shape and the crew aboard the space station is safe.

NASA TV will air live coverage of the next dock attempt beginning at 4 a.m. with grapple (the capturing of the spacecraft by a robotic arm on the space station) expected around 6 a.m. Installation coverage, NASA says, will begin at 8 a.m. Those interested in watching can do so by visiting https://www.nasa.gov/live.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/68263-spacex-resupply-mission-international-space-station-aborted-try.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Space-X seems to have taken a much more cautious approach to this one, which I'm sure NASA and Russia greatly appreciate. No benefit with playing bumper cars with the ISS ....

 

[NimbusTLD]

Oh imperial units, how awful you are. If NASA used metric they could just write "700 metres".

 

[tonylukac]

Didn't do rocket science. Might have been great.

 

[oldikes]

Oh imperial units, how awful you are. If NASA used metric they could just write "700 metres".

im about 9000% sure nasa uses metric for anything remotely critical.

 

[Raoul Duke]

Space-X seems to have taken a much more cautious approach to this one, which I'm sure NASA and Russia greatly appreciate. No benefit with playing bumper cars with the ISS ....

considering the job Progress M-34 did on MIR. definitely no bumper cars LOL
(Progress M-34 was a Russian unmanned cargo spacecraft which was launched in 1997 to resupply the Mir space station, which subsequently collided with Mir during a docking attempt, resulting in significant damage to the space station.)

 

[Uncle Al]

considering the job Progress M-34 did on MIR. definitely no bumper cars LOL
(Progress M-34 was a Russian unmanned cargo spacecraft which was launched in 1997 to resupply the Mir space station, which subsequently collided with Mir during a docking attempt, resulting in significant damage to the space station.)

I remember it well! I recall that the occupants had to don their suits rather quickly due to an oxygen leak and didn't they eventually have to abandoned that particular hatch / airlock for another one?

 

[Raoul Duke]

Nice short article and 8 min video talking to participants with some reconstruction of collision video
http://www.spacesafetymagazine.com/space-disasters/close-calls/lessons-learned-mir-collision/

 

[captaincranky]

im about 9000% sure nasa uses metric for anything remotely critical.

Not entirely true. NASA crashed a Mars lander by confusing metric and imperial measure calculating orbital insertion velocity and distance..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter

EDIT: An alternative explanation might be, "you know that and NASA knows that, they simply forgot to tell their (former ?) employees".