zlacker

Is NASA ever this quick to restart a launch mission after a scrubbed attempt? 3 days seems blazingly fast considering the risks and possible consequences.

>>mladen+(OP)
Arguably, SpaceX's raison d'etre is fast turnaround on launches. NASA's... well... if y'all want to have the political debate about their true raison d'etre in reply to this I can't stop you, but let's just agree that in practice, fast turnaround has always been a stated goal, but not one they've been able to put much work towards in practice. (i.e., if one were simply handed a Shuttle design and asked to figure out what the top priorities were in its design, one would be very unlikely to answer "fast turnaround in launches", regardless of the process that got us there.)

>>mladen+(OP)
When my former co-worker was in Kwajalein he got to watch a SpaceX launch. It was initially scrubbed and all the Air Force people went home, but he stayed around and they had a successful launch a few hours later.

>>mladen+(OP)
STS-128 launched 4 days after a scrub. STS-134 had 3 days between attempts. STS-74 was scrubbed due to weather at landing sites, and launched the next day (about 30 hours later).

The older shuttle launches generally had less penalty for missing their launch window because they were not going to ISS (or Mir or Hubble) and didn't have to wait for a very specific launch window for rendezvous, which can take days.

Apollo never had a scrub, which is nice because missing your launch window to the moon can mean waiting another month. The Saturn V could turn around in 2 or even 1 day, theoretically. They did have to do a few holds.

>>jccoop+cc
This launch, if it had been scrubbed, had another launch window tomorrow, just a few minutes shy of 24 hours (3:02PM EST).