A technical glitch has caused SpaceX to delay the first commercial flight of a new rocket as it was about to blast off. The rocket needs to complete seven successful flights before it can transport astronauts for NASA.
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American aerospace company SmartX on Thursday postponed the first commercial flight of its updated Falcon 9 rocket after a last-minute technical glitch.
The rocket's onboard computers stopped the countdown about one minute before the brand new Block-5 edition of the Falcon 9 was due to take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on its first mission, to carry a communications satellite into orbit for Bangladesh.
Controllers for billionaire Elon Musk's private launch company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, said the flight would be delayed for at least 24 hours and it would try again on Friday.
Reason for glitch uncertain
The exact reason for Thursday's automatic shutdown of the final launch sequence was not determined.
Launch commanders will have to go through data logs produced by onboard computers to find out what may have gone wrong.
The Falcon 9 Block-5 has about 100 upgrades for greater power, safety and reusability than its Block-4 predecessor.
Its recoverable main-stage booster is designed to be reused at least 10 times with minimal restoration between flights, allowing for more frequent launches at a lower cost, which is a key element of SpaceX's business model.
Budget space travel could be in the stars
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Normalizing space travel
Rocket reusability is also one of Musk's broader aims for normalizing space travel and ultimately sending humans to Mars.
So far, the company has safely return-landed 24 of its boosters and reflown 11 of them.
The Block-5 is the first rocket from Musk's company to fulfill NASA's requirements for its Commercial Crew Program to carry agency astronauts to the International Space Station.
But NASA requires seven successful flights before the new rocket can receive the final certification for a manned mission.
The Block-5 will also be used to launch US Air Force global positioning satellites and other high-value, military and national security payloads.
Yuri Gagarin - The beginning of human space travel
As the first man ever, Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth 60 years ago. On April 12, 1961 his flight marked the beginning of the race for space between East and West.
Image: picture alliance/dpa
Ready for take-off
April 12th, 1961: Yuri Gagarin took off on board a Vostok-1 rocket and fully orbited the Earth. He was the first man in space. The foundryman was still being trained as a fighter pilot when chosen for the space mission.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
Belka and Strelka lead the way
Before Gagarin, space engineers had hardly any experience with living creatures in space. The two dogs Belka and Strelka, along with a rabbit, 40 mice and two rats, were the first animals to survive a trip into space. They took off on 19th August, 1960, on board the satellite Sputnik-5 and returned safely inside a landing capsule.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/ Heritage Images
A celebrated hero
After his return, Gagarin became a celebrity. He traveled the whole world as an ambassador for the Soviet space program. After that he was supposed to train for future cosmonauts. But it never came to that. He first wanted to complete his training as a fighter pilot and on March 27, 1968, had a fatal crash with an MIG-15 during a training excercise.
Image: Getty Images
International recognition
Despite the ongoing Cold War, Gagarin received recognition for his achievement in East and West alike. But the news also sped up the Americans' efforts to prove themselves in space. This edition of the Huntsville Times quotes German-American rocket engineer Wernher von Braun as warning the US not to lag behind the Soviet space program.
Image: AFP/Getty Images
One year later - John Glenn follows Gagarin into orbit
On February 20, 1962, it was the Americans' turn: A Mercury-Atlas-6 rocket carried the first astronaut into space. John Glenn orbited the Earth three times. He was a more experienced pilot than Gagarin. Before becoming an astronaut, Glenn had already begun a career as a fighter- and test pilot with the Marines, breaking the supersonic record at the time.
Image: Reuters/NASA
Emancipation in space: The first woman cosmonaut follows soon after.
Two years after Gagarin, the Soviet Union sent its first female cosmonaut into orbit. Valentina Tereshkova spent three days aboard space ship Vostok-6 and circled the earth 48 times. Here she stands between her cosmonaut colleagues Gagarin und Bykovski. She is a celebrity to this day: At the 2014 Sotchi Winter Olympics, she carried the Olympic flag. She is also a legislator in the Duma.
Image: picture-alliance/RIA Nowosti
Winning the race to the moon
On 20th July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon. The U.S. had won the space race. To this day, NASA remains the only agency that has put men on the moon. However, for the last four decades the moon has not received very much attention. Research and development have focused primarily on space stations, Earth observation, telecommunication and deep space exploration.
Image: picture-alliance/Photoshot/Neil A. Armstrong
Gagarin as a myth
Especially in Eastern Europe, people have kept the memory of Gagarin alive. The Soviet Union made an effort to enable all allied socialist countries to send their own space travelers into orbit, such as East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and others. This was meant as a symbol of socialist unity and friendship.
Image: DW/R. Goncharenko
Today: International cooperation on the ISS
With the end of the East-West confrontation, the race of the political systems faded and cooperation grew. It all started when the Soviets invited western astronauts to visit the MIR Space Station in the late 1980s. Today, efforts are concentrated on the International Space Station (ISS). Besides Russia and the US, participants include the European Space Agency (ESA), Canada and Japan.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/ESA/NASA
Tomorrow: A joint future on the moon?
In the decades to come, cooperation is most likely going to increase. Where will the journey lead us? It may be back to the moon. A moon village like this might one day even become a successor to the ISS.