There’s nothing special about the Falcon 9 launch on Wednesday afternoon. Which makes it very special. This is the 102nd orbital launch of the year, and one of perhaps ten such launches that may take place this week.
This will be 20th SpaceX launch of the year as the Falcon 9 continues to be the new workhorse of the industry. The launch today has literally a one second launch window. And that launch is only about 10 minutes away as I write this. So, tune in to see if they get this one off on time.
This will be a new Falcon booster, but the Dragon cargo capsule is on its second trip to ISS.
This launch will also pack along over twenty payloads … including some mice.
Wednesday, Dec 5, 2018 · 6:36:04 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
As a first guess, I suspect that the Falcon 9 ran out of the cold gas used on the booster control system. It began to spin just a couple of kilometers up, and they seemed unable to correct it.
Similar failures happened on two early attempts at a booster recovery. But it’s been awhile since that became an issue.