SpaceX has had four scrubs of the same mission in four days. The mission is to launch their second batch of Kuiper satellites for Amazon, and while four scrubs in four days is really unusual (far from normal - call it four sigma), here's the tidbit that will knock that four sigma out to six or beyond. The booster, tail number B1091, is an unflown, brand new booster! Even more unusual, it was originally configured as the core booster for a Falcon Heavy.
In a May 7 social media post, Jon Edwards, SpaceX vice president of Falcon and Dragon, said that B1091 will be used as a Falcon 9 booster “a handful of times before being reconfigured and flying as a Falcon Heavy” center booster.
For the record, the first two scrubs were due to launch vehicle issues while the last two were due to weather. The first scrub came when an issue arose while fueling the booster, and my guess is the issue was still there on the second launch attempt.
View from the autonomous drone ship A Shortfall Of Gravitas, or ASOG, this morning (fourth attempt). These recovery operations are generally off the coast of South Carolina. Image credit: SpaceX via Livestream
They're not out of the woods weather-wise, tomorrow either.
The 45th Weather Squadron, based at Cape Canaveral, gave the mission a 75 percent chance of acceptable weather for launch. The primary concerns in the forecast issued Sunday were for violations of the cumulus cloud and anvil cloud. Meteorologists also said the booster recovery weather on Monday was a “moderate” risk on a low-moderate-high scale.
“A stationary boundary will remain draped across northern Florida Monday, maintaining deep atmospheric moisture across the Space Coast,” launch weather officers wrote. “While conditions aloft look more stable Monday compared to the weekend, there remains a small chance of a shower or thunderstorm in the morning across the Spaceport during the launch window.
“The stalled boundary could generate elevated winds and a higher chance of showers Monday near the booster recovery location.”
OBTW, if you're in Brevard county, tomorrow is the first day of school and the scheduled launch time of 8:35 AM or 1235 UTC is probably going to coincide with kids getting into their classrooms. That has a tendency to bring its own traffic hassles.
Even SpaceX has bad days. Of course their 'good days' in a year meet what everyone else's good days in a decade.
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