NASA has aborted the planned launch of Hurricane Satellite Constellation on Monday due to problems with its launching system, agency officials updated.
The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) costs $157 million was slated to soar into orbit on an air-launched Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket, but a hydraulic pump used to release rocket from its L-1011 carrier plane had a problem.
NASA launch director at Kennedy Space Centre said, "We did a lot of valiant troubleshooting in the air, as you can imagine, everyone really wanted to preserve every opportunity to have another launch attempt today. We did circle around the racetrack once, resetting breakers on board the aircraft, doing what we could in flight to get the system back functional again."
The NASA statement stated that launch of NASA's CYGNSS spacecraft has been stopped due to problems in the hydraulic pump that controls the release of Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket from the L-1011 carrier aircraft. The hydraulic pump was not receiving much power. Teams will assess the issue after the plane lands. The aircraft is on its way back with the Pegasus XL rocket still safely attached. The next possible launch opportunity is on the next day, pending resolution of the pump issue.
The L-1011 carrier aircraft took off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida ahead of launch's attempt and will return to the station to land and be readied for possible next day launch attempt.
Dunn revealed that they battled a lot of weather and were able to fly around and over and under a lot of precipitation and bad clouds on the way out to the drop point. "Weather looks slightly better for the next day, so that looks like it won't be as troubling an issue as it was the first time," he said.
The NASA description about CYGNSS mission is: CYGNSS will utilize a constellation of eight microsatellite observatories that will be placed in a circular orbit more than 316 miles above Earth's surface. With an orbital inclination of 35 degrees, the small spacecraft will concentrate on the region nearest the equator, the tropics where these cyclones form.
