Looks like a scrub for today. Bummer! But likely the right thing to do.
I have a little tool that I use to chat about pages and events - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/4039/
It's a Firefox sidebar and you just open it up when on a page (like the spacex home page). I posted commentary from the webcast to it for those that came in late.
The latest update on http://www.spacex.com/updates.php#demoflight_2_launch_update_11 concerns me a little.
I thought the point of the static fire was to catch issues like this - things that only happen with the actual hardware, rather than with the simulator. Sounds like the static fire countdown must not have actually done the step of switching to radio telemetry - why would that step be left out? What other steps are left out of the static fire countdown that are now untested?
I'm also a little dubious of the claim that they're now confident it's okay because they've done several simulator runs. Surely trusting the simulator runs was the problem in the first place? I'm not sure what *else* could be done except "try it and see", but I'm not sure I'd be touting the simulator as a reason for confidence at this point.
I really want to see SpaceX succeed. But things like this do shake my confidence a bit.
Seems like some things that should be added for the future are (a) making sure ALL the steps of the real countdown are included in the static fire countdown, and (b) running a simulation in parallel with the real process as it happens, so that if there are discrepencies - even if they're no problem - they can be noticed and the simulation fixed for next time.
Sorry to be so negative. Good luck with the launch today!
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Looks like a scrub for today. Bummer!
But likely the right thing to do.
I have a little tool that I use to chat about pages and events - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/4039/
It's a Firefox sidebar and you just open it up when on a page (like the spacex home page). I posted commentary from the webcast to it for those that came in late.
The latest update on http://www.spacex.com/updates.php#demoflight_2_launch_update_11 concerns me a little.
I thought the point of the static fire was to catch issues like this - things that only happen with the actual hardware, rather than with the simulator. Sounds like the static fire countdown must not have actually done the step of switching to radio telemetry - why would that step be left out? What other steps are left out of the static fire countdown that are now untested?
I'm also a little dubious of the claim that they're now confident it's okay because they've done several simulator runs. Surely trusting the simulator runs was the problem in the first place? I'm not sure what *else* could be done except "try it and see", but I'm not sure I'd be touting the simulator as a reason for confidence at this point.
I really want to see SpaceX succeed. But things like this do shake my confidence a bit.
Seems like some things that should be added for the future are (a) making sure ALL the steps of the real countdown are included in the static fire countdown, and (b) running a simulation in parallel with the real process as it happens, so that if there are discrepencies - even if they're no problem - they can be noticed and the simulation fixed for next time.
Sorry to be so negative. Good luck with the launch today!
Break A leg Guys
Maurice
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