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Vulcan launchpad static fire engine test aborted

ULA engineers were forced yesterday to abort their first attempt to complete a launchpad static fire engine test of the first stage of the company’s new Vulcan rocket due to an issue with “the booster’s ignition system.”

[D]uring the countdown at Launch Complex 41 Thursday afternoon, ULA teams “observed a delayed response from the booster engine ignition system,” the company said in a statement. The issue meant that countdown procedures ahead of the ignition of two Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines at the business end of the company’s new rocket had to be halted.

The roughly 200-foot rocket will have to be rolled back into ULA’s nearly 300-foot protective Vertical Integration Facility for technicians to assess the booster’s ignition system.

It will obviously be necessary to attempt this static fire test again before attaching the rocket’s solid-fueled side boosters, which suggests the launch’s tentative target date in June is likely threatened.

These kinds of issues are not unexpected prior to a rocket’s first launch. ULA however is now paying for the three-plus year delay imposed on it by Blue Origin’s delays in delivering the BE-4 engines used in that first stage. These pre-launch tests had been planned for 2020, not 2023. Let us hope that ULA engineers don’t rush these tests now, because of those Blue Origin delays.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

  • Concerned

    When all else fails, they’re gonna have to resort to a Vulcan mind meld.
    Paging Mr. Spock.

  • Edward

    Let us hope that ULA engineers don’t rush these tests now, because of those Blue Origin delays.

    I don’t get the impression that ULA is suffering from launch fever. I think that they are committed to a successful launch.

    SpaceX, on the other hand, is in the development phase of its Starship, and they do have launch fever. Rather than wait for the perfect test article and the most up-to-date launch pad plating and water deluge system, they are willing to test what they have now in order to learn the other, unexpected, problems. All the delays with SLS are why it worked on its first flight, and the “go fever” on the Starship test unit are why it did not reach orbit on its first flight — and why the launch pad was so greatly damaged. Starship is trying new ideas and trying impossible ideas and can afford mishaps during development, but Vulcan cannot afford mishaps during operations.

    ULA is doing what NASA did with SLS, the opposite of what SpaceX is doing with Starship, working out the bugs before launch so that their customers can trust this rocket, showing on its flight that it is operational. Vulcan is no longer in development; it is supposed to be in operational condition. This means it must work successfully from this point onward. This is what these final tests are intended to do, assure the company that Vulcan is ready to successfully launch from now on. As with all other operational flights, if that means a delay, then delayed it must be.

    Virgin Orbit’s mishap was the proximate (not root) cause of its demise. ULA does not want a similar disaster to happen to them.

  • pawn

    Agree with Edward.

    ULA is in a tight spot on several fronts and needs to toe the line on keeping Murphy at bay as much as possible.

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