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posted by martyb on Friday September 09 2016, @10:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the rocket-surgery dept.

An executive from SpaceX's chief competitor, the United Launch Alliance (ULA), predicts that SpaceX won't conduct any more launches for the next 9 to 12 months, as it makes repairs and investigates the explosion of a Falcon 9 booster on Sept. 1:

"It typically takes nine to 12 months for people to return to flight. That's what the history is," Tory Bruno, chief executive of United Launch Alliance, told Reuters. [...] Bruno said the main issue after accidents involving space launches has "always been figuring out what went wrong on the rocket, being confident that you know ... how to fix it and then actually getting that fix in place." Repairing damage to the launch pad is usually not a significant issue, he said. "Historically, it had never been the pad that's taken the longest time," he said.

Bruno spoke with Reuters a few hours before ULA, a partnership of Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, was preparing to launch its 111th rocket, so far all successfully. An Atlas 5 rocket, carrying a NASA asteroid sample-return spacecraft, was poised for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida about 1.2 miles (2 km) away from the SpaceX launch site.[*]

Bruno said he called SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell shortly after the accident to extend sympathies and offer help. "It's a small community and issues especially around safety - but even mission success - kind of transcend the competitive piece of this," Bruno added.

ULA and SpaceX are rivals for private space missions and launches by U.S. government agencies. Musk's company in May broke ULA's monopoly on flying U.S. military and national security satellites, winning an $83 million Air Force contract to launch a Global Positioning System satellite in 2018. The two firms are expected to square off over a second satellite launch services bid, which closes on Sept. 19.

[*] See SoylentNews coverage: OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Return Mission - Launch Successful -Ed.


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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by isostatic on Friday September 09 2016, @11:50PM

    by isostatic (365) on Friday September 09 2016, @11:50PM (#399839) Journal

    The fix is simply more struts

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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Yog-Yogguth on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:09AM

    by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:09AM (#399867) Journal

    Or not launching anything that will be used by Facebook.

    Could have been a karma explosion :P

    --
    Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
    • (Score: 2) by davester666 on Monday September 12 2016, @07:33AM

      by davester666 (155) on Monday September 12 2016, @07:33AM (#400559)

      Better not launch anything for Google then. And if it's for Oracle, each piece will explode separately as it is being produced.