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The First Launch of NASA's Orion Spacecraft Was Aborted, Rescheduled for Friday

After several aborted countdowns and delays, NASA decided to play it safe with the inaugural launch of its next-generation spacecraft.
​Image: NASA

The inaugural launch of the Orion spacecraft—the keystone vehicle of NASA's new deep space exploration program—experienced practically every variation of delay this morning, before it was finally aborted minutes before its launch window closed at 9:44 AM.

The event was originally scheduled to take place at 7:05 AM ET, but was delayed by the presence of a stray boat in the area. The next countdown was aborted due to strong northerly winds, and the launch time was rescheduled for 8:26 AM.

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But the spacecraft's run of bad luck continued when a liquid hydrogen fuel and drain valve did not close. Over the next hour, several troubleshooting efforts were made as the clock slowly ticked towards the latter end of Orion's launch window.

"With about 20 minutes in launch window, the team is preparing to make one last attempt to [unclear due to static] drain and valve issue today that has cropped up," said Mike Curie, the launch commenter on NASA's livefeed, at 9:24.

It was a nail-biter. With time quickly running out, the team decided to shoot for one last countdown, literally scheduled for the last minute: 9:44 on the dot. But minutes later, they called it off to reschedule the launch for tomorrow.

"A decision by management was made to postpone launch for today, and we will stand by for more information on that," said Curie on the livefeed. "The managers recognized that because of some declining current in batteries on the Delta video system related to cameras it would be more prudent to save the battery life for a potential launch attempt tomorrow."

The Orion spacecraft is the flagship vehicle for NASA's future deep space ambitions, including manned missions to the Moon, Mars, and even asteroids.