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On this Thursday, September 24, 2020, image released by SpaceX / NASA, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts, from left, mission specialist Shannon Walker, pilot Victor Glover, and Crew Dragon commander Michael Hopkins, all astronauts NASA and mission specialist Soichi Noguchi, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut, gesture during the crew interface test at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. now it needs to be replaced. (SpaceX / NASA via AP)
SpaceX’s second astronaut flight is off until mid-November because red lacquer dripped into tiny ventilation holes in two rocket engines that now need to be replaced.
SpaceX and NASA officials announced Wednesday the discovery of the potentially harmful contamination.
The plugged holes were found after the disrupted launch of a GPS satellite on October 2. Two of those engines were tainted with the bright red coating, which protects the engine parts during cleaning.
SpaceX later encountered the same problem with two of the nine auxiliary engines on the rocket that will launch four astronauts towards the International Space Station. It will be SpaceX’s second astronaut launch for NASA after a successful test flight earlier this year.
The engine problem prompted SpaceX and NASA to suspend the launch on November 14, two weeks after scheduled.
A vice president of the company, Hans Koenigsmann, said new procedures are being implemented to prevent the problem.
“The important part, I think, for us is that we took it before anything happened,” Koenigsmann told reporters. “Really important to us to fix it … and make sure it never happens again.”
The plugged vent holes, located in the engine gas generators, are only one sixteenth of an inch (1.6 millimeters).
The onboard computers detected the problem and stopped the October 2nd countdown in the last few seconds. The contaminated engines could have been severely damaged if fired, Koenigsmann said.
The cleaning process is performed by an external company, which has not been identified. The problem seems to have only surfaced in the past couple of months, he noted, affecting brand new boosters but not older ones that have already been recycled multiple times.
SpaceX’s next launch for NASA, a satellite to monitor sea level change, is scheduled for November 10 from California after a contaminated engine replacement.
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Quote: Red liner contaminates SpaceX rockets, delays crew launch (2020, October 29) recovered October 29, 2020 from https://phys.org/news/2020-10-red-coating-contaminates-spacex-rockets .html
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