The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) has noted that it scrubbed a SpaceX launch at the Vandenberg Space Force Base.
This is a developing story. It will be updated as additional details become available.
SpaceX was gearing up to launch TRACERS, NASA’s latest mission to study solar wind and how it impacts Earth. A second attempt will take place on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, all appeared to be going well in the final seconds of the countdown, and usually, the Launch Director, the person directing the launch, comes on the radio at T-45 seconds to say “Go for launch”.
This time, however, we heard the SOP “Hold Hold Hold” call. This tells all operators in mission control that the count is being paused, and in the case of Falcon 9, they can no longer launch that day.
It was quickly noted on the official stream that the reason for the Hold was “FAA airspace concerns”, which is not totally uncommon, as the Range can go red when a vehicle, such as a boat or plane, enters the downrange exclusion zone.
Notably, this time, this was not the reason. The FAA confirmed that the airspace concerns were not any specific aircraft, but rather the Air Traffic Control Center monitoring those aircraft.
An ARTCC isn’t like a control tower at an airport; it’s what is called a Center, which is responsible for a huge area of airspace, called a Flight Information Region (or FIR).
In particular, the LA ARTCC is responsible for the KZLA FIR, which in addition to parts of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, covers the airspace of Southern California – the location of Vandenberg Space Force Base.,
Due to a “regional power outage” in the Santa Barbara area, the LA ARTCC was suffering from some communications problems. Therefore, it probably could not verify, or perhaps could not tell SpaceX, if the range of Green or not.
As such, SpaceX had no option but to scrub the launch due to the Range being in an unacceptable configuration to allow the Falcon 9 to launch on Tuesday.
(Lead image credit: SpaceX livestream)
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