NSF stream mentioned reports of a stuck valve. Might to on 2nd stage which is hydrogen fuel but no further details.
Blue Origin gives up on New Glenn lift-off, 2 hours into launch window
Blue Origin has given up on today's lift-off attempt for its New Glenn rocket, confirming that it was standing down a little more than two hours into the vehicle's launch window. Rocket fanciers who were up at 0600 UTC for the opening of the launch window saw repeated resets of the countdown clock before Jeff Besoz's company …
COMMENTS
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Monday 13th January 2025 13:33 GMT Spazturtle
I doubt it, SpaceX need New Glenn to work. Starship is a long way off being man rated due to not having any method of launch abort. With SLS likely getting canceled that leaves New Glenn as the only suitable replacement. So if BO can't get New Glenn working then that also throws a spanner in SpaceX's plans.
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Monday 13th January 2025 14:40 GMT John Robson
In the current configuration it can lift about the same to LEO, but due to the higher performing upper stage it can do better to GTO or interplanetary.
The payload volume is also colossal compared with FH, and probably could be enlarged on special request. Starship certainly has higher LEO capability on the cards, and on orbit refuelling is considered a necessity for serious progress beyond that. Of course it also has a very different payload configuration... at the moment we've only seen the pez dispenser, and some boiler plates for HLS access - both nothing about how they'll deploy a large payload (which could of course contain it's own kick stage.
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Tuesday 14th January 2025 16:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
On the contrary. I agree that they will get to a point where they can do what's claimed. It's just not shown to be there yet.
Note the difference between "In the current configuration" and "there might be some engineering needed between now and that capability being availble"
Currently it hasn't even proven that it can get itself off the launch pad. Yes, we all suspect that it can do that with ample margin, but it's not proven.
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Monday 13th January 2025 14:42 GMT John Robson
Not sure why New Glenn is what you'd consider necessary for manned work... Dragon and the F9 are already very capable, and I imagine it would be less work to man rate the FH than NG at this point if you really wanted some extra dV.
Of course you can also launch SS, and then do a dragon rendevous in LEO. Ship up 7 people at a time...
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Monday 13th January 2025 16:08 GMT John Robson
Dragon was originally designed for lunar return, though the heatshield has almost certainly been downrated since then.
You could of course come back to LEO and then return - might need a little bit of extra fuel, and probably a different SS from the current HLS variant.
Orion doesn't have to be the only game in town. I'm sure a SS designed as a lunar relay vehicle could do an awful lot of that work.
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Monday 13th January 2025 15:16 GMT Oneman2Many
You don't want all your eggs in one basket, you can't have Dragon as the only human rated system and FH is too close to F9 to be considered for diverse launch systems.
Who knows what is happening with Starliner and Dreamchaser and which launcher they will be certified with. BTW, a couple of future LEO space station designs have NG being the human taxi but don't know what capsule.
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Monday 13th January 2025 15:11 GMT Oneman2Many
Shuttle didn't have launch abort and Starship won't have for HLS taking off from the moon. I am guessing they are hoping that having proven reliability record will be enough for human rating along with enough redundant systems, etc
However don't know how long that will take. Until then they have Crew Dragon.
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Monday 13th January 2025 15:23 GMT Essuu
Launch Abort Mandatory
The Shuttle didn't have a launch abort, which meant the seven astronauts on Challenger had absolutely no chance - there's no way that Starship gets a NASA human rating without a launch abort system. Most likely they'll have to use Crew Dragon to ferry astronauts to orbit to join a Starship before journeying on to the Moon or Mars. Which would be workable as it would mean they could fly more fuel on the first Starship launch, and then only add passengers once it has gone through refuelling as many times as it needs to for its mission. Crew Dragon can be configured to hold seven astronauts, which is fine going up, even if NASA won't support the same number coming down.
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Monday 13th January 2025 16:12 GMT John Robson
Re: Launch Abort Mandatory
The shuttle did have launch abort options - it had ejection seats on two vehicles...
There was a period in operational flights when there were no launch abort options available (from SRB light to burnout).
A capsule ejection system might have helped in the challenger incident, but it's not entirely clear - and it would have required extensive redesign to make it work.
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Monday 13th January 2025 16:39 GMT imanidiot
Re: Launch Abort Mandatory
Especially with crew on the lower deck, a capsule ejection system just wasn't feasible on STS, it would have involved basically ejecting the entire pressurized cockpit/nose section. Structurally and weight wise that was never going to happen. The ejection seats were only for the 2 crew in the pilot seats, and were only "hot" on STS-1 through 4. They were disabled by STS-5 and eventually removed. The seats only worked up to 80k feet after which the SRB plumes expanded to a size that the ejecting pilots would pass straight through the SRB exhaust. At nearly the same time dynamic pressure would also exceed face-plate limits, meaning they'd be screwed either way. There was a radio call "negative seats" to indicate this point. On return, the seats were only useable below a certain speed (iirc somewhere around mach 2.5) meaning that on re-entry the seats were also not useable for the majority of the ride until way down in the atmosphere (well beyond the point an out of control shuttle would break up).
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Tuesday 14th January 2025 15:24 GMT Oneman2Many
Re: Launch Abort Mandatory
Also don't think any craft has had a re-entry abort capacity. There was a thing with the shuttle that the astronauts would take shelter on ISS or wait on the shuttle until a rescue shuttle could be sent up. Never mind there was really any way of doing shuttle to shuttle transfers.
The options for shuttle was rather limited. Columbia was built with ejector seats but I am guessing it wasn't feasible as the remaining orbiter didn't have them. On the launchpad they had zipline baskets which are still in use for Crew Dragon. After the Challenger disaster they added a bailout capability where they had a different suit and could exit from the hatch and parachute down though most comments said it would never work.
The main issue where the boosters, until the burnt out you couldn't eject them and without ejecting them there was no chance of doing an alternate site landing, Can't remember the flight number but after an engine failure they where within a whisker of an abort to orbit which would have meant a once around and land back at Vandenburg or alternate site.
For Apollo, Crew Dragon, Starliner and I think Soyuz there is a abort system which ejects the capsule from launcher. This works on the launch pad as well.
Starship doesn't appear to have any options for any stage of the flight. This may change in the future, I don't know.
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Tuesday 14th January 2025 17:03 GMT John Robson
Re: Launch Abort Mandatory
The closest SS could have is a ship from booster, but it's still screwed without anywhere to land (and probably screwed even then because that booster would be going like a scalded cat if the ship detached).
The lack of ability to land has to be a major gotcha for a SS abort option... let's get the thing to orbit first maybe. Once we have a reliable and reusable system we can look at crew after that.
It's not as if the Apollo landers had much in the way of redundancy or abort options either - we can, and should, do better than that of course.
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Monday 13th January 2025 21:09 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Launch Abort Mandatory
"Crew Dragon can be configured to hold seven astronauts, which is fine going up, even if NASA won't support the same number coming down."
And, assuming they are coming back, enough Dragon capsule launches to bring them back down at whatever capacity NASA agree to. :-)
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Tuesday 14th January 2025 06:38 GMT Oneman2Many
From twitter,
New Glenn Launch Update: Our next launch attempt is no earlier than Tuesday, January 14. Our three-hour launch window remains the same, opening at 1 a.m. EST (0600 UTC). Tonight’s poor weather forecast at LC-36 could result in missing this window. This morning’s scrub was due to ice forming in a purge line on an auxiliary power unit that powers some of our hydraulic systems.
Followed by,
We’re moving our NG-1 launch to no earlier than Thursday, January 16. The three-hour launch window opens at 1 a.m. EST (0600 UTC).
Teething problems, hopefully nothing serious. I can remember how many scrubs electron, falcon, sls, vulcan and starship had.
IFT+7 still on for Wednesday.
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Thursday 16th January 2025 11:07 GMT Oneman2Many
Congratulations to BO. A few holds on countdown this morning but almost perfect flight. Good take off, separation, reached orbit, first stage retro burn and BO reporting they were very close but couldn't stick the landing. Only downside is that we have been rather spoilt by SpaceX of live views of the mission, hopefully there should be more footage coming out and I believe NASA had one of their Canberra based WB-57 in the landing area with infra-red cameras so might get some footage from them.
Just waiting for BO haters to turn up now.