Friday, March 1, 2013

SpaceX Runs Into Thruster Glitch On Mission

Uh oh. All did not go well in the launch this morning by Hawthorne-based SpaceX, in its second official mission to the International Space Station. According to NASA, the SpaceX Dragon achieved orbit, but ran into an issue with a propellant valve, with only one thruster pod running. SpaceX is now apparently briging up the remaining three to get the spacecraft to the International Space Station. NASA said that the Dragon requires at least two pods to begin a series of burns to get to the space station. Despite the issues, SpaceX apparently opened up its solar arrays after a manual override of its computers earlier this morning; the firm has yet to provide another update on the status of its thrusters.