Two One Out of Three Isn't That Good

Of the three SpaceX launches for today listed last night, only one has been successful.  The launch of the USSF-124 mission went successfully at its scheduled 5:30 PM EST.  Video here.  

Conditions in the backyard were great and we were able to follow it visually until after Main Engine Cut Off and Second Engine Start but not as far as we can see night launches.  The entry burn of the booster to wipe off much of its velocity was suddenly visible and bright against the evening's blue sky.  The Landing Zone on the KSC is below our horizon so a booster landing is always invisible to us.

The previous launch, last night's attempt at launching the Intuitive Machines IM-1 lunar lander, was scrubbed 90 minutes before the scheduled 12:57 AM liftoff.  The probe was unique in requiring liquid oxygen and liquid methane to be loaded a few hours before the launch.  It required SpaceX to modify the ground support equipment at Pad 39A, which made it the only pad of the two on the Cape that could handle this launch.  That, in turn, led to the delays because of other missions that could only launch from Pad 39A, like the manned AX-3 mission.  

It's currently scheduled for Thursday morning the 15th at 1:05 AM EST.  

An excellent and succinct summary was posted as a comment to last night's post by Malatrope this afternoon. 

"It's not trivial to load the liquid oxygen and liquid methane into the vehicle," said Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of build and flight reliability for SpaceX.

The company had to modify the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket to add propellants onto the Nova C lander at the launch pad shortly before liftoff. SpaceX and Intuitive Machines completed two tests of this new procedure over the weekend. It's a complex process, and during the countdown, SpaceX actually controls six valves on the lunar lander to ensure the integrity of the fueling process. Despite the tests, a non-nominal methane temperature reading observed late Tuesday night scrubbed the first launch attempt a couple of hours before the planned liftoff early Wednesday.

The launch after the USSF-124 mission was originally scheduled for 7:30 PM EST, 4:30 PST, from Vandenberg SFB. That launch was postponed, then rescheduled for later in the window, and eventually rescheduled for Thursday afternoon at 1:34 p.m. PST, 4:34 EST.  It can be watched live on SpaceX's X (Twitter) account starting about five minutes before launch. 

Screen capture of the one launch from the Space.com video. 

The last thing I mentioned in the lead-in post yesterday was that whenever I do a post about X launches in Y days, things don't tend to work out.  In this case it went from 3 in 1 day to one.  The saying that space is hard is demonstrated yet again.