Space for the day

Time has an article by The Associated Press about SpaceX:

SpaceX called off a planned launch of a deep-space observatory— and a revolutionary rocket-landing attempt— after a critical radar-tracking system failed. The company halted the countdown at the three-minute mark following the loss of the Air Force radar system for tracking the rocket in flight. Chief executive officer Elon Musk said via Twitter that the company would try again, and that the delay probably was for the best.
“This will give us time to replace first stage video transmitter,” the company’s billionaire founder wrote, adding that it was not needed for launch, “but nice to have”.
Besides launching its first deep space mission— an observatory that will shoot to a spot a million miles from Earth to monitor solar outbursts— SpaceX will attempt its second landing of a leftover booster on an ocean platform. It’s part of the company’s plan to eventually reuse rockets.
The Deep Space Climate Observatory is refashioned from the Earth-observing satellite conceived in the late 1990s by Al Gore when he was vice president. It was canceled before ever flying and packed away until several years ago, when NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Air Force decided to resurrect it as a space weather sentinel. Gore arrived at Cape Canaveral, Florida well in advance of the sunset liftoff, eager to see his brainchild finally soar. He told reporters an hour before the planned launch time that he was grateful to the scientists and others who kept his dream alive. The measurements will help measure global warming, he noted, and the steady stream of pictures of Earth may help mobilize the public to put pressure on the world’s government leaders “to take action to save the future of human civilization.”
“The constant ability to see the Earth whole, fully sunlit, every single day… can add to our way of thinking about our relationship to the Earth,” said Gore. He was accompanied by Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who flew on the space shuttle as a congressman in 1986.
The three hundred million dollar mission is meant to provide a heads-up on intense solar activity that can disrupt communications, power and air travel. That’s why the spacecraft is to be stationed a million miles from Earth and ninety million miles from the sun, the so-called Lagrange point where the gravity fields are neutralized.
Tom Berger, NOAA’s director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, likened it to a “tsunami buoy.”
The observatory originally was called Triana, after the sailor who first spotted land on Christopher Columbus’ historic voyage. Now it’s dubbed DSCOVR, short for Deep Space Climate Observatory.
Gore’s presence added to the excitement at the launch site. Also contributing to the buzz, though, was the experimental landing planned by SpaceX. Musk wants to eventually reuse his rockets to cut down costs and speed up flights.
It will be the second such landing test for SpaceX. Last month’s effort ended in flames.
SpaceX loaded more hydraulic fluid into the first-stage booster this time for the guidance fins; the fluid ran out too soon on 10 January, and the booster landed hard and tumbled over. But the path of the unmanned Falcon 9 rocket this time will see the booster descending faster than before, making it harder to nail the vertical landing.
SpaceX officials repeatedly stressed that the landing test is a secondary objective, and that the main job is to make sure the observatory gets a good ride to space.
“Launching our first deep space mission today,” Musk wrote via Twitter. He noted that the observatory will end up “four times further than the moon. Rocket reentry will be much tougher this time around, due to deep space mission,” he added. “Almost two times the force and four times the heat. Plenty of hydraulic fluid tho.”
The modified barge that will serve as the landing zone nearly four hundred miles off the Florida coast is almost as big as a football field, but small against the backdrop of the Atlantic. The fourteen-story booster will descend from an altitude of about eighty miles, with touchdown expected nine to ten minutes after liftoff.

Rico says better luck next time...