Space X may have to switch out one of the main engines of their Falcon 9 rocket after some dangerous moments Saturday morning. With a half-second left in the countdown, the computer aborted the launch after detecting a problem with one of the rocket’s nine engines. Space Expert Dan Billow reports SpaceX will go out to the launch pad to assess the situation. They hope to fix the problem in time for their next launch attempt scheduled for 3:44am Tuesday.

A rocket launch by a private company to the International Space Station was aborted at the last second early Saturday morning.

An unmanned Space X Falcon 9 rocket was set to blast off at 4:55 a.m., but the launch was scrubbed because of high chamber pressure on engine five.  The rocket’s engines ignited but computers cut them off before liftoff as the 10-second countdown reached zero.

The next SpaceX launch attempt will likely be Tuesday at 3:44 a.m.

The Falcon holds a capsule called Dragon that is loaded with 1,000 pounds of space station provisions.

“Next time Dragon sees the sun, it should be doing 17,000 mph over the Atlantic,” SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk said via Twitter as the Saturday countdown entered the final hours.

Once launched, the Dragon will reach the space station about two days later for a series of practice maneuvers and then docking. Only governments have accomplished that to date.

NASA is looking to the private sector to take over flights to orbit in the post-shuttle era. The goal is to get American astronauts launching again from U.S. soil. SpaceX officials said that could happen in as little as three years, possibly four. Several other companies are in the running.

SpaceX – or Space Exploration Technologies Corp. – is based in Southern California. That’s where the company’s Mission Control is located for this flight and where Musk positioned himself for Saturday’s launch attempt.

Musk, a co-creator of PayPal, founded SpaceX a decade ago.

About 1,000 SpaceX and NASA guests poured into the launching area in the wee hours of Saturday, hoping to see firsthand the start of the new commercial era.

Everyone, it seemed, was rooting for a successful flight.

“Go SpaceX,” read the sign outside Cape Canaveral City Hall. Until NASA’s space shuttles retired last summer, the sign had urged on the launches of Discovery, Endeavour and, finally, Atlantis. Those ships are now relegated to museums.

This is no routine supply run.

Set to rocket off early Saturday, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft faces a daunting series of systems tests and complicated maneuvers — something similar to an ultraserious shakedown cruise for a new-generation nuclear-powered submarine — before it will be given the green light to berth at the International Space Station.

The bar is raised sky-high, and for SpaceX, the idea is to show the U.S. and its 15 international partners that the Dragon poses no threat to the station or the six people living and working aboard it.

Then, and only then, will the Dragon be given a “go” to enter the “Keep Out Sphere,” a 220-yard safety zone that surrounds the sprawling, million-pound outpost.

After that, SpaceX will be allowed to attempt a feat only federal space agencies in the U.S., Russia, Europe and Japan have accomplished: an orbital rendezvous with the station.

“This is pretty tricky. And also, for the public out there, they may not realize that the space station is zooming around Earth every 90 minutes, and it’s going 17,000 mph,” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. “This is something that is going 12 times faster than a bullet from an assault rifle. So it’s hard.”

The most ambitious mission ever launched in the history of commercial spaceflight is scheduled to get under way at 4:55 a.m. Saturday from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The launch window is instantaneous. That means that 4:55 a.m. is the only time Saturday that the Falcon 9 rocket can put the cargo-carrying Dragon on course for the station while reserving enough propellant for all the required maneuvers on the crucial test flight.

Musk, a billionaire Internet entrepreneur who also heads electric car and solar power companies, normally is buoyed by high confidence. But his outlook in this case is tempered by the difficulty of the mission at hand.

The flight involves a challenging series of spacecraft maneuvers around the space station, an equally daunting berthing at the outpost, and something no other robotic space freighter can do: survive atmospheric re-entry with a return cargo, and then splashdown in the Pacific Ocean for recovery, refurbishment and re-flight.

“I think we’ve got a pretty good shot,” Musk said. “But it’s worth emphasizing that there’s a lot that can go wrong on a mission like this. So if we don’t succeed in berthing on this mission, then we’ve got a couple of missions later this year, and I think we’ll succeed on one of those.”

The plan calls for the SpaceX Dragon to fly within about 30 feet of the space station.

Then, working at a control console inside the outpost’s Cupola observation deck, U.S. astronaut Don Pettit will grapple the cone-shaped spacecraft with the station’s 57.5-foot Canadian robotic arm.

Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency will take the controls at that point. He’ll use the arm to maneuver Dragon to a berthing port on the Earth-facing side of the U.S. Harmony module. Pettit will then securely latch the spacecraft to the port.

But the orbital arrival won’t happen unless the Dragon successfully passes an extensive series of tests to prove its guidance and navigation, communications and other critical systems are operating properly.

The tests are similar to those European and Japanese cargo carriers had to fly before their inaugural arrivals.

“These are the requirements that must be achieved before the ‘go’ is given to do the final approach,” said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program.

First, the Dragon must demonstrate it can:

• Abort an approach to the station

• Retreat from an approach — stop and back away

• Stop and float freely, as it will have to when it’s grappled

• Hold: Stop and maintain its position

• Navigate: Confirm that guidance and navigation systems accurately show Dragon’s position, velocity and distance from the station

• Communicate: Establish radio contact. Receive and execute commands issued by station astronauts. Maintain contact with the outpost and the ground through NASA communications satellites.

All of this will start about 10 minutes after launch, when the Dragon spreads its solar power wings and begins a carefully choreographed series of engine firings to reach the station.

Then the Dragon is supposed to do a “fly-under” of the space station early Monday, followed by a complicated loop around the outpost — first cruising 125 miles out in front of the complex before soaring an identical distance back behind it.

If all goes well, the final approach and berthing operations would begin early Tuesday. Hatches between Dragon and the station would open the next day.

Astronauts over the following two weeks will unload about 1,150 pounds of noncritical supplies, such as crew clothing. Noncritical in case the Dragon never makes it there.

Then around June 6, the plan calls for the Dragon to depart the station, re-enter the atmosphere and splash down off the coast of southern California.

SpaceX hopes to recover the craft and return it to their Hawthorne, Calif., manufacturing facility near Los Angeles International Airport.

The mission is crucial for International Space Station operations. Assuming all goes well, SpaceX intends to launch its first, fully loaded cargo resupply mission to the station in mid-August. SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion contract to launch 12 cargo missions.

Another company — Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va. — holds a $1.9 billion contract to launch its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft on eight cargo missions.

Orbital plans to launch a test flight of its Antares rocket in July. Then in September, an Antares rocket is scheduled to launch a Cygnus cargo carrier on a demonstration mission to the ISS. The Virginia firm hopes to launch its first cargo resupply mission to the station in early 2013.

With the U.S. shuttle fleet retired, the Dragon is the only means to return scientific experiments and equipment from the station. All other robotic cargo carriers servicing the station double as garbage trucks and burn up in the atmosphere.

“Since we no longer fly shuttles, we can’t take anything sizeable back down from the space station,” Pettit said. “SpaceX will be our route to getting all these scientific samples and broken pieces of hardware that need to be refurbished (back) to the ground.”

“This is absolutely critical to space station,” Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, added. “We really need this cargo capability to get to station, and the return capability that Dragon provides is truly unique.”

Friday night several families camped out in their cars to see the early morning launch.

Laura and Andres Hart from Coral Springs have never seen a launch of any kind.

“It’s exciting,” Laura said.

A day after the public got its first detailed look at evidence in the Trayvon Martin case, the attorney defending his accused killer said much more is yet to come.

“There’s going to be some other forensic evidence that was worked up, some other expert witness statements, some testing that was done that will get in discovery,” said Mark O’Mara.

The most crucial evidence not being released, though, are statements his client George Zimmerman made to police.

They are exempt from disclosure at this point because they are considered confessions.

“There’s a chance I may have a right to suppress some of those,” O’Mara said.

He said the 183 pages of documents, hours of witness interviews, crime scene photographs, and surveillance videos released Thursday constitute less than half the evidence amassed by prosecutors who charged Zimmerman with second-degree murder.

“I have less than half and you have less than I do,” O’Mara said.

O’Mara would not comment specifically on any of the evidence, which included statements from acquaintances of Zimmerman who said he showed signs of racism.

That could be crucial, as the state must show he acted with ill will, spite or hatred when he shot the unarmed 17-year-old Miami youth, who was black.

O’Mara said he would seek to obtain records from an ongoing U.S. Justice Department civil rights investigation into whether Zimmerman acted with racial malice.

“That information will either show my client did additional things wrong or, conversely, that they didn’t find any evidence that my client did something affecting Trayvon Martin’s civil rights in an inappropriate way,” O’Mara said.

 

 

A man was shot in the head Friday afternoon at an Orlando gas station, according to police.

The shooting occurred around 1 p.m. at the Mobil on John Young Parkway at Colonial Drive.

The man was taken to a hospital, but his condition was not known.  It’s not known if he worked at the gas station.

Orlando police have launched a search for the shooter.

No other details have been released.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

Police are searching for a man in a business suit who robbed a West Melbourne bank, according to authorities.

Police said the man entered the Bank of America at 303 W. New Haven Ave. around 11:45 a.m. and implied he had a weapon.

“He fled on foot.  We think he might have had a car somewhere close by,” said West Melbourne police Cmdr. Steve Wilkinson.

Police later released an image of the man, who was wearing a white collared shirt under a dark suit coat.  He also was wearing a light-colored hat with the letters “SP” or “SF” on it.  The man could only be described as white with a dark goatee or beard.

No one was injured in the robbery.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

The Department of Children and Families on Friday released reports that document some past problems involving a Port St. John woman who fatally shot her four children and killed herself, but they don’t shed any light into why the shootings occurred.

Tonya Thomas shot her two daughters, 17-year-old Pebbles Johnson and 13-year-old Jazzlyn Johnson, and her two sons, 15-year-old Jaxs Johnson and 12-year-old Joel Johnson, Tuesday morning at their home on Bright Avenue.

Brevard County sheriff’s officials said the motive for the shooting is unknown.

“I don’t believe the information in these files gives us the answer as to why (the shootings occurred), which is what so many of us are asking right now,” said DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner.

The DCF first became involved with Thomas in 2000 after a report of domestic violence dispute between her and the father of her children, Joe Johnson.  Two days later, the children were removed from their home for a month.

“That decision was made after a domestic violence incident between the mother and the father, and the mother had actually gone back into the home in violation of an injunction against that father,” Hoeppner said.

In 2007, allegations were made that Thomas’ oldest daughter forced other children to kiss her in a bathroom at school.  Other students complained that she bullied them, so she was moved to a different classroom, officials said.
In April, Jaxs Johnson was not picked up from a detention center after being arrested on a charge of battering his mother.  The case was closed by the DCF five days before the shootings.

The DCF said Thomas was in the process of getting counseling for her family and looking into other options, such as finding a mentor for Jaxs Johnson.

The investigator who worked the case took several days off after the deaths because he was so distraught, the DCF said.

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