CAPE CANAVERAL, fla. — Try as it might, Orion didn’t get off the ground Thursday morning.
At 5:05 a.m. MST Thursday, millions of people turned their attention to Cape Canaveral, Fla., where NASA’s Orion spacecraft was set to begin its Experimental Flight Test-1. But the 2 hour, 39 minute flight window was marred by malfunctioning rocket fuel valves and uncooperative weather and in the end, the launch was scrubbed.
The weather can’t be controlled. However, malfunctions of the liquid hydrogen fuel valves on the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket designed to take Orion to space could become a larger issue.
“It’s always hard to know exactly how quickly you’re going to be able to process the data and understand exactly what happened,” said Dan Collins, Centennial-based ULA’s chief operating officer. “My gut feeling tells me this afternoon we’ll have a pretty good idea and we’ll convene all the right people from the different aspects of the team and get our ‘go forward’ plan.”
Collins also made one thing clear: Do not point fingers at the boat.
Thursday’s first countdown hold was blamed on a boat that reportedly strayed within an area of water prohibited for travel during a launch. Collins absolved the boat of any blame amid widespread speculation that the errant craft set off a chain of events that ultimately caused the launch to be postponed.
NASA said it will try again Friday.
A new launch window opens at 5:05 a.m. MST, and there are several factors that will be taken into consideration.
First, weather could again cause trouble. Thursday’s forecast held a 30 percent chance of conditions that might interrupt the mission, yet weather was a factor in the delay. That risk increases to 60 percent on Friday, with the added danger of stronger coastal showers and higher winds.
A Delta IV Heavy rocket may be enormous, winds but can push it around, depending on the direction it’s blowing, Collins said: “It’s either blowing on a knife or it’s blowing on a garage door.”
The other issue has to do with the refueling needs of the Delta IV Heavy rocket. The launch pad’s ground tanks can only support two launch attempts. If the launch fails Friday, the next possible time Orion could try again would be Sunday.
But if EFT-1 can get off the ground Friday, Orion will venture farther into space than any National Aeronautics and Space Administration ship built for humans has gone in more than 40 years.
It will be a huge moment of pride for many in Colorado. Orion was designed and built by Littleton-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems, has antennae and cameras from Broomfield-based Ball Aerospace, and will hurtle into space on a Delta IV Heavy rocket, made by Centennial-based ULA.
Many of those who worked on Orion in some manner gathered Thursday morning at Kennedy Space Center, packing the causeway overlooking Space Launch Complex 37, giddily awaiting the moment all their hard work pays off with the very tangible benefits of roaring rockets, and billowing smoke and flame.
These included Phillip Bailey, President of Deep Space Systems, a company that worked on Orion’s avionics systems, and Lockheed Martin senior engineer Marleen Martinez.
Even though she’s been eagerly anticipating this day for a long time, Martinez took the scrubbed launch in stride.
“I’ve been through this with the GRAIL (mission),” she said. “It’s not a new experience, but it’s a little disappointing since hope was so high this morning.”
Thousands of others have poured into the Cape Canaveral area in recent days, resulting in booked hotels and frequent random high-fives between strangers sharing a common bond through their love of space.
It is a thrilling — and nerve-racking — time.
“I’m excited and slightly anxious,” Martinez said. “I didn’t get any sleep last night.”
Orion is part of NASA’s blueprint to take humans into deep space. Think of it like a basic model vehicle — if “basic” means designed by rocket scientists — that can be used for many different types of exploration missions.
EFT-1 will allow specific tests to be run on spacecraft separation systems, descent, landing and recovery, and radiation — data from which will be used to guide the development of the next iteration of the capsule.
Of special concern is Orion’s heat shield, designed and built by Lockheed Martin engineers in Waterton Canyon. It is designed to protect the spacecraft, and its eventual crew, from the blazing hot temperatures experienced upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Temperatures on the outside of the crew module will reach about 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit as Orion re-enters Earth’s upper atmosphere. The goal is to keep the crew quarters a comfortable 72 degrees Farenheit.
NASA has said humans will go to an asteroid in 2025 and to Mars sometime in the 2030s. The next Orion launch following EFT-1 will not be until Experimental Mission One in 2018, and that one will not be manned, either. It will, however, launch aboard the new Space Launch System — the next generation of heavy-lift rocket being developed by NASA.
This pace has been criticized for being too slow, however, there is a method to the madness, said Larry Price, Lockheed’s deputy director of the Orion mission.
“If we can do it in a very metered, methodical way, we can get there safely, faster and at less cost,” Price said. “This team, with this flight especially, is able to demonstrate as being a really good way to take a very modest amount of money and be able to move the world forward.”
Orion’s 4 hour, 24 minute journey will include two passes of Earth — one at an altitude of 552 miles, and another at 3,609 miles. Orion will pass twice through the Van Allen Radiation Belts, which can wreak havoc on the spacecraft’s systems.
If all goes well, Orion will splash down about 600 miles off the coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. Orion will be recovered by a highly-trained and specialized team, and will be returned to Kennedy Space Center shortly before Christmas.
Prior to leaving the Orion control room late Wednesday night, Martinez and co-worker Sara Keckel left notes for the test conductor and systems engineers to find on launch morning that read “All the best! Godspeed!”
“I made sure not to say ‘good luck,’ ” Martinez said. “This Orion team has worked too hard to rely on luck now. All the missed sleep and missed kids’ recitals has culminated to this point. I’ve never seen such a dedicated team.”
Collins said his team will develop a fix for the valve issue after examining all aspects. He was confident this could be done with procedural fixes as opposed to heading back to the drawing board.
“”When we’ve seen similar behavior in the past, we did not need to change out any hardware. We were able to come up with different operational procedures to mitigate that risk,” he said. “We’re going to make sure we have a happy rocket, and as soon as we do that, we’re going to get back to the pad and send Orion on a very successful test flight”
Laura Keeney: lkeeney@denverpost.com, 303-954-1337 or twitter.com/laurakeeney
