WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - SpaceX, the aerospace company of Elon Musk, on Tuesday called off its planned launch to the International Space Station due to technical problems. SpaceX expects to make an attempt again on Friday.
During the countdown, engineers aborted the launch with just over a minute remaining after observing a problem with one of the two thrust vector actuators. The computers would likely have caused an automatic abort even if the engineers had not called for an abort, the company said.
'Actuator drift' on the rocket's second-stage thrust vector control system occurred late in the countdown, automatically triggering the abort, NASA said.
SpaceX now plans to attempt a second lift-off of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft on Friday at 5:09 a.m. EST, if they can fix the problem by then.
The primary objective of the mission is to send food supplies and technical materials to the International Space Station. The company will also attempt to land the Falcon 9 first-stage rocket on a custom-built ocean platform known as the 'autonomous spaceport drone ship.'
Most rockets are designed to burn up on reentry into earth's atmosphere, but SpaceX plans to land the rocket safely on Earth to be reused again, which has never been attempted before. This attempt, if successful, will be a significant breakthrough in space programs and will substantially reduce the cost of such efforts.
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