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  Home arrow News arrow News from Space arrow SpaceX launch scrubbed, but Hayabusa succeeds (finally)

 
SpaceX launch scrubbed, but Hayabusa succeeds (finally) | Print |  E-mail
Written by staff   
Wednesday, 30 November 2005

>scrub-eX
SpaceX’s scheduled launch of its new Falcon 1 rocket on Nov. 26 was scrubbed, according to a recent space.com article.

Weather caused the first delay, with an incorrectly set liquid-oxygen valve causing an additional delay. Then, running out of liquid oxygen, an engine computer glitch finally prompted the temporary cancellation of the launch.

SpaceX has not yet announced a new launch date, but it’s expected to be soon.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk noted,  “...the likelihood of an all new rocket launching from an all new launch pad on its first attempt is low.”

We forgive you. Now get it right.

>try, try again
On Saturday, Nov. 26, the cursed-but-plucky Japanese ion-drive spacecraft Hayabusa finally landed on asteroid Itokawa, fired a projectile into the asteroid’s surface and collected samples, according to an Associated Press report. Hayabusa had failed to do this on an earlier attempt and has been beset by other problems as well.

After the landing, the craft started shuddering, and JAXA shut down its engines to investigate the problem. They are now optimistic that Hayabusa will be able to begin its journey back to Earth in early December. If it succeeds, it will land in the Australian outback in 2007, and will be the first time that humans have successfully collected samples from an asteroid in space and returned them to Earth.

 
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