By Brendan McGarry – 2012-05-20T04:00:07Z

Roger Gilbertson/SpaceX via Bloomberg

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Photographer: Roger Gilbertson/SpaceX via Bloomberg

A U.S. mission to send the first unmanned commercial spacecraft to the International Space Station was aborted with a half second left in the countdown.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp.s Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the companys Dragon capsule, attempted to lift off at 4:55 a.m. yesterday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. A computer detected an engine pressure problem, grounding the rocket and delaying the flight for a new attempt May 22.

The closely held company, known as SpaceX and led by billionaire Elon Musk, was trying to make history by docking its vehicle with the station. The U.S. government retired its own shuttle fleet last year and relies on other countries for rides to space. The U.S. wants the private sector to take over the job of ferrying supplies to and from the lab.

This is not a failure, Gwynne Shotwell, president of Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX, said during a National Aeronautics and Space Administration press conference after the scrubbed attempt. We aborted with purpose. It would be a failure if we were to have lifted off with an engine trending in this direction.

The engines ignited and rumbled momentarily before going silent. An on-board computer aborted the launch a half-second before liftoff after detecting high pressure in engine five, possibly caused by a fuel valve malfunction, Shotwell said. An inspection later yesterday found a faulty valve on the engine, and it was to be replaced last night.

The software did what it was supposed to do — aborted engine five, and it went through the remaining engine shutdown, she said. The Falcon 9 rocket needs all nine engines for liftoff and at least seven to achieve orbit.

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SpaceX’s Commercial Launch to Space Station Aborted at Liftoff

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Stakes High for 1st Private Rocket Launch to Space Station Saturday

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SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 at Cape Canaveral in Florida was scheduled to launch Saturday morning, but aborted just before liftoff.

SpaceX rocket Falcon 9 at Cape Canaveral in Florida was scheduled to launch Saturday morning, but aborted just before liftoff.

Moments after ignition, a privately funded spacecraft aborted its liftoff, delaying its mission to the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s unmanned rocket had a one-second window to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Saturday morning, and the failed launch means the next opportunity won’t be until early Tuesday morning.

The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, had been tweeting from the company’s California headquarters leading up to the scheduled launch time of 4:55 a.m. ET.

“Whatever happens today, we could not have done it without @NASA, but errors are ours alone and me most of all,” he said.

The successful launch would have been just the beginning in a series of tests for the private spacecraft.

The Dragon capsule, perched atop the Falcon 9 rocket, would become the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station. Even after it eventually launches, though, it will be a few days filled with more trials before the Dragon can berth.

Update at 10:04 a.m. ET. Shutdown A Half-Second To Launch:

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Aborted Liftoff Delays Trip To Space Station

SpaceX’s historic launch to the International Space Station was aborted in the pre-dawn hours at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday when computers detected a problem with one of the rocket’s nine engines and automatically shut down.

Countdown to the launch, which was webcast on NASA TV, hit T-0 at 4:55 a.m. Eastern time when the rocket engines seemed to briefly light before the technical problem hit.

Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and chief executive, tweeted shortly afterward: “Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.”

The next window for the Hawthorne company to launch is May 22 at 3:44 a.m. Eastern (12:44 a.m. Pacific).

SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is launching its Falcon 9 rocket in a demonstration flight for NASA. The unmanned docking mission to the space station is intended to prove to NASA that SpaceXs rocket and space capsule are ready to take on the task of hauling cargo for the space agency now that the space shuttle fleet has been retired.

NASA has already begun hiring privately funded start-up companies for spacecraft development and is moving toward eventually outsourcing NASA space missions.

When SpaceX does launch, the company is set to make history when its Dragon capsule docks with the space station three days later, marking the first time that a privately built craft has docked.

During the mission, SpaceX aims to do a flyby of the $100-billion space station, then approach it so the space station crew can snag it with a robotic arm and dock it.

INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC: SpaceX’s demonstration mission

SpaceX, profiled in The Times on Tuesday, already has a $1.6-billion contract to haul cargo in 12 flights to the space station for NASA. If the upcoming mission is successful, SpaceX would start to fulfill the contract in earnest. SpaceX also plans to carry astronauts to the space station one day.

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SpaceX's historic launch to space station scrubbed at last second

From John Zarrella, CNN

updated 11:23 PM EDT, Sat May 19, 2012 |

SpaceX: Launch abort ‘not a failure’

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) — SpaceX’s launch of the first private spacecraft bound for the International Space Station has been rescheduled for next week after the mission was aborted Saturday a half a second before liftoff, the company said.

The historic launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with its Dragon capsule filled with food, supplies and science experiments, was halted when a flight computer detected “high pressure in the engine 5 combustion chamber,” the company said in a statement.

“We have discovered the root cause and repairs are underway,” it said.

CNN explains: Commercial space flight

SpaceX now plans a pre-dawn launch as early as Tuesday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Liftoff is scheduled for 3:44 a.m. ET, according to the statement released late Saturday.

“During rigorous inspections of the engine, SpaceX engineers discovered a faulty check valve on the Merlin engine. We are now in the process of replacing the failed valve,” the company said Saturday. “Those repairs should be complete tonight.”

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Private mission to space station scrubbed half a second before liftoff

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — For the first time, a private company will launch a rocket to the International Space Station, sending it on a grocery run this weekend that could be the shape of things to come for America’s space program.

If this unmanned flight and others like it succeed, commercial spacecraft could be ferrying astronauts to the orbiting outpost within five years.

It’s a transition that has been in the works since the middle of the last decade, when President George W. Bush decided to retire the space shuttle and devote more of NASA’s energies to venturing deeper into space.

Saturday’s flight by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. is “a thoroughly exciting moment in the history of spaceflight, but is just the beginning of a new way of doing business for NASA,” said President Barack Obama’s chief science adviser, John Holdren.

By handing off space station launches to private business, “NASA is freeing itself up to focus on exploring beyond low Earth orbit for the first time in 40 years.”

California-based Space Exploration, or SpaceX, is the first of several companies hoping to take over the space station delivery business for the U.S. The company’s billionaire mastermind, Elon Musk, puts the odds of success in his favor while acknowledging the chance for mishaps.

NASA likewise cautions: This is only a test.

“We need to be careful not to assume that the success or failure of commercial spaceflight is going to hang in the balance of this single flight,” said Mike Suffredini, NASA’s space station program manager. “Demo flights don’t always go as planned.”

Once it nears the space station after a two-day flight, the SpaceX capsule, called Dragon, will spend a day of practice maneuvers before NASA signals it to move in for a linkup. Then its cargo a half-ton of food and other pantry items, all nonessential, in case the flight goes awry will be unloaded.

Up to now, flights to the space station have always been a government-only affair.

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Commercial rocket will fly to the space station

SpaceX’s first attempt to send its Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station ended abruptly Saturday morning when computers aboard the company’s Falcon 9 rocket shut off the craft’s engines just after ignition.

SpaceX’s first attempt to send its Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station ended abruptly Saturday morning when computers aboard the company’s Falcon 9 rocket shut off the craft’s engines just after ignition.

The control system for the rocket, which uses a cluster of nine of the company’s Merlin engines in its first stage, checks to ensure all the engines are running properly before the craft is released to begin its climb to space.

After a flawless countdown, the engines ignited at 4:55 a.m. as scheduled. But the flight-control computer detected too much pressure in the combustion chamber of one of the engines and aborted the pre-dawn launch. The next launch opportunity comes at 3:44 a.m. Monday.

This mission combines into one attempt the objectives of two demonstration flights the company must perform for NASA before it begins regular cargo runs to and from the International Space Station under a $1.6 billion, 12-mission space-station resupply contract.

SpaceX must show that the automated Dragon spacecraft is capable of the precision flying needed to operate safely in the station’s vicinity before docking including a rendezvous-abort maneuver as well as perform the maneuvers needed to bring it within reach of the space station’s robotic arm.

Once station crew members have Dragon in their grasp, they use the arm to dock the craft with the station.

This mission represents only the third for the Falcon 9. The rocket’s initial test launch in June 2010 was successful. SpaceX’s hardware cleared another key milestone the following December, when the company lofted, orbited, and recovered its Dragon capsule becoming the first commercial venture to pull off such a feat.

Although the previous successes have fed high expectations for this mission, SpaceX founder and chief designer Elon Musk cautioned during a press briefing in April previewing the mission that the rocket is still relatively new.

At a post-scrub briefing Saturday morning, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said all nine engines ignited normally, but the flight-control computer detected too much pressure in engine five’s combustion chamber, triggering the abort a half second later.

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SpaceX mission to space station scrubbed for now

An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station early Thursday, kicking off a four-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin docked with the space station at 12:36 a.m. ET Thursday as the two spacecraft soared 249 miles above the border between Mongolia and Kazakhstan.

More space news from msnbc.com

Science editor Alan Boyle’s blog: Astronomers are taking a long, deep look at one of the best-known galaxies beyond our own Milky Way, to learn more about what happened when it gobbled up another agglomeration of stars that got too close.

“Everything went very smoothly, very well,” Padalka radioed the Russian Federal Space Agency’s Mission Control Center in Moscow just after docking.

For Acaba, the docking came as a welcome birthday present to mark his 45th birthday, NASA commentator Rob Navias said.

The three spacefliers were due to float into the orbiting lab’s hatch overnight, bringing the station back up to its full crew of six. Their fellow Expedition 31 crew members NASA’s Don Pettit, Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko have had the $100 billion orbiting complex to themselves since April 27.

Acaba, Padalka and Revin launched Monday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They were originally scheduled to blast off on March 29, but a botched pressure test cracked their Soyuz capsule, causing a six-week delay while another spacecraft was readied. [See Spectacular Soyuz Launch Photos]

A four-month space stay The three new arrivals will live and work aboard the space station for four months, returning to Earth in mid-September. All will serve as flight engineers under Kononenko, the commander of the Expedition 31 mission.

Kononenko, Pettit and Kuipers boarded the orbiting lab in late December and are scheduled to depart on July 1.

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US-Russian crew arrives at space station

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SpaceX's 1st Private Capsule Launch to Space Station: How It Will Work

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New US-Russian Crew Arrives at Space Station

Don Pettit / NASA

This is a composite of 18 time-exposure images photographed from a mounted camera on the International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. The image is filled with star trails and spiraling reflections from the space station’s solar arrays.

By Alan Boyle

Flying on the International Space Station is the world’s biggest high, and a series of psychedelic time-exposure images engineered by NASA astronaut Don Pettit proves it.

This picture, showing the station’s truss structure in the foreground and Earth’s airglow in the background, is actually a composite of 18 different exposures. A couple of other pictures in the series step things up a notch by putting together 47 exposures. Here’s Pettit’s explanation of the process, as laid out in the NASA Twitter gallery:

“My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures, I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure.”

This isn’t the only experiment Pettit has been conducting during his stint on the space station. A wide variety of scientific tests are under way in orbit, ranging from studies of human health in zero-G to the chemistry of Scotch whisky in weightlessness. Pettit has shown off some pretty trippy experiments in a couple of space station videos, including the creation of antibubbles within bubbles and the sight ofsonic water dropletsrockin’ out to the sounds of ZZ Top. As Pettit says in one of the videos: “Oh, wow!” Check out the full “Science Off the Sphere” series, presented in cooperation with the American Physical Society.

NASA astronaut Don Pettit injects bubbles inside bubbles in microgravity.

Don Pettit demonstrates water oscillations on a speaker in microgravity.

More about the space station:

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Space station astronaut shares a groovy trip

If successful, the unmanned flight will mark the first time a privately built spaceship has docked with the International Space Station.

The private spaceflight company SpaceX is preparing to launch a robotic capsule to the International Space Station this week, following a series of delays that postponed the historic first flight of a commercial spacecraft to the orbiting outpost.

SpaceX is slated to launch itsDragon capsuleto the space station atop the company’s own Falcon 9 rocket on May 19 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is set for 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT).

The test flight was originally scheduled to occur on April 30, but has been delayed several times to complete final checks of the spacecraft’s flight software.

The Dragon launch will now occur shortly after three new crewmembers arrive at the orbiting complex. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft, carrying NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, is slated to blast off from Kazakhstan tonight (May 14), and will arrive at the station on May 17.

The test flight of the unmanned Dragon capsule is designed to assess the spacecraft’s ability to carry cargo to the orbiting outpost. If successful, it will mark the first time a privately built spaceship has docked with the $100 billion space station. [Gallery: Dragon, SpaceX's Private Spacecraft]

Over the past few weeks, SpaceX engineers have been preparing theFalcon 9 rocketand testing the capsule’s docking software. After Dragon reaches orbit, the spacecraft will embark on a three-day chase of the space station before making its planned rendezvous.

As the capsule approaches, two astronauts aboard the station Don Pettit of NASA and Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency will grab onto Dragon using the outpost’s robotic arm and manually attach it to the complex.

Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to fly 12 robotic cargo missions to the space station as part of the agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The upcoming Dragon flight is designed to test the spacecraft’s ability to ferry supplies to and from the station.

Eventually, the company intends to use a version of Dragon to carry up to seven passengers to low-Earth orbit.

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SpaceX to attempt historic private launch to space station this week (+video)

If successful, the unmanned flight will mark the first time a privately built spaceship has docked with the International Space Station.

The private spaceflight company SpaceX is preparing to launch a robotic capsule to the International Space Station this week, following a series of delays that postponed the historic first flight of a commercial spacecraft to the orbiting outpost.

SpaceX is slated to launch itsDragon capsuleto the space station atop the company’s own Falcon 9 rocket on May 19 from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Liftoff is set for 4:55 a.m. EDT (0855 GMT).

The test flight was originally scheduled to occur on April 30, but has been delayed several times to complete final checks of the spacecraft’s flight software.

The Dragon launch will now occur shortly after three new crewmembers arrive at the orbiting complex. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft, carrying NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin, is slated to blast off from Kazakhstan tonight (May 14), and will arrive at the station on May 17.

The test flight of the unmanned Dragon capsule is designed to assess the spacecraft’s ability to carry cargo to the orbiting outpost. If successful, it will mark the first time a privately built spaceship has docked with the $100 billion space station. [Gallery: Dragon, SpaceX's Private Spacecraft]

Over the past few weeks, SpaceX engineers have been preparing theFalcon 9 rocketand testing the capsule’s docking software. After Dragon reaches orbit, the spacecraft will embark on a three-day chase of the space station before making its planned rendezvous.

As the capsule approaches, two astronauts aboard the station Don Pettit of NASA and Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency will grab onto Dragon using the outpost’s robotic arm and manually attach it to the complex.

Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to fly 12 robotic cargo missions to the space station as part of the agency’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. The upcoming Dragon flight is designed to test the spacecraft’s ability to ferry supplies to and from the station.

Eventually, the company intends to use a version of Dragon to carry up to seven passengers to low-Earth orbit.

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SpaceX to attempt historic private launch to space station this week

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New Astronaut Crew Launching to Space Station Tonight

ALMATY, Kazakhstan A three-man crew blasted off from a space center in southern Kazakhstan Tuesday morning on board a Russian-made Soyuz craft for a four-and-half-month stay at the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin set off from the Baikonur facility as scheduled at 9:01 a.m. local time.

Russia’s space agency says the craft is due to dock with the space station Thursday morning Moscow time and will join the three astronauts currently staying at the orbiting laboratory.

The crew, which is being commanded by retired 53-year old Russian Air Force Col. Padalka, will immediately get to work preparing for the arrival next week of privately owned SpaceX’s Dragon Capsule. It will be the first time a private company has launched space station supplies.

The space station is currently occupied by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Holland’s Andre Kuipers.

Padalka is a seasoned space traveler, having spent a total of 585 days in space on three previous missions on board the now-defunct Mir station and the current International Space Station. Inglewood, California-native Acaba, who turns 45 on Thursday, on the day that Soyuz is due to dock, makes his second venture into space after his maiden orbital voyage on the shuttle in 2009. Revin, 46, is making his first trip to space.

Until NASA either brings a new craft online or private companies are able to arrange manned trips to the orbiting station, the Soviet-designed Soyuz spacecraft will remain the only means to deliver crews to the orbiting outpost.

The Russian space program has been blighted by a string of technical glitches in the recent past, raising questions over its dependability.

Tuesday’s launch had been pushed back by two months due to depressurization of the spacecraft’s descent module during the ground testing phase. It was the second significant postponement of a manned Russian launch in the space of a year.

A Russian Mars moon probe crashed to Earth in January in what the nation’s space agency described as the result of cosmic radiation.

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US-Russian crew blasts off on trip to International Space Station

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SpaceX to Launch 1st Private Capsule to Space Station This Week

A Russian Soyuz rocket, with three astronauts aboard, is due at the International Space Station Thursday. On Saturday, the SpaceX ‘Dragon’ will follow.

A Russian rocket launched three astronauts toward the International Space Station late Monday night (May 14), kicking off a two-day journey to the huge orbiting lab.

NASA astronaut Joe Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin launched aboard aSoyuz spacecraftfrom Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome Monday at 11:01 p.m. EDT.

The Soyuz is slated to dock with thespace stationshortly after midnight EDT (0400 GMT) on Thursday (May 17). Once aboard, the three spaceflyers will bring the orbiting complex back to its full complement of six residents. Their fellow Expedition 31 crewmembers NASA’s Don Pettit, Dutchman Andre Kuipers and cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko have had the station to themselves since April 27.

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The launch was a long time coming for Acaba, Padalka and Revin. They were supposed to lift off on March 29, but their flight was delayed for six weeks after a botched pressure test rendered their original Soyuz capsule unusable and forced a new one into service. [Photos: New Expedition 31 Mission Begins]

A four-month stay

The three newcomers will live aboard the station for four months, eventually returning to Earth in mid-September, NASA officials said.

The veteran cosmonaut Padalka already has two long-duration stints aboard the space station under his belt, but the experience will be a new one for the other two astronauts aboard the Soyuz. Acaba visited the station for less than two weeks on his lone previous spaceflight, the shuttle Discovery’s STS-119 mission in 2009. And Monday’s launch marked Revin’s first trip to orbit.

Acaba said he’s looking forward to his extended stay aboard the station.

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Russian Soyuz (finally) lifts off for space station (+video)

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SpaceX Capsule Slated to Soar to Space Station on Saturday

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Three-man Soyuz crew departs for space station

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New Astronaut Crew Launches Toward Space Station