SpaceX's Falcon-9 Dragon successfully lifts off to resupply ISS [One of 9 Engines "shuts down"]

The Weather Space ^ | October 8, 2012 | Staff Reporter

[Cincinatus' Wife]

SpaceX says Engine No. 1 on the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage experienced some sort of anomaly about 80 seconds into the launch, but lift-off did occur.

Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO and chief designer, said the engine was shut down by the rocket's on-board computers.

"Falcon 9 detected an anomaly on one of the nine engines and shut it down," Musk said. "As designed, the flight computer then recomputed a new ascent profile in realtime to reach the target orbit, which is why the burn times were a bit longer."

The first stage burned nearly 30 seconds longer than planned. Nine Merlin 1C engines power the Falcon 9's first stage, generating nearly a million pounds of thrust. The kerosene-fueled engines are built by SpaceX at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.

Engine No. 1, positioned on one of the corners of the tic-tac-toe pattern of first stage engines, was shut down earlier than planned, according to Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president. Shotwell said she was not sure of the cause of the problem, but the engine was turned off.

"Like the Saturn 5, which experienced engine loss on two flights, the Falcon 9 is designed to handle an engine flameout and still complete its mission," Musk said. "I believe Falcon 9 is the only rocket flying today that, like a modern airliner, is capable of completing a flight successfully even after losing an engine. There was no effect on Dragon or the space station resupply mission."

SpaceX has long touted the Falcon 9's ability to recover from the loss of a first stage engine at any point during launch. A company spokesperson said more details on the problem would be released Monday.

The Falcon 9 deployed the Dragon cargo spacecraft in a nearly perfect orbit ranging in altitude from 122 miles to 203 miles, according to SpaceX.

The rocket's second stage later deployed a two-way data communications satellite for Orbcomm Inc., according to Shotwell. No information was immediately available on its state of health.

The Orbcomm satellite rode into orbit as a piggyback payload.

Meanwhile, the Dragon spacecraft is in good condition.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

BUMP!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

“MR. MUSK: The ideal thing to do would be to tax CO2. But taxes are difficult to implement. So, we’re doing an indirect thing, which is to subsidize electric cars to some degree, and other sort of renewables.” Wall Street Journal "What's holding back energy innovation?"