Today’s launch of the Orion spacecraft had to be scrubbed due to a technical issue with the Delta IV Heavy. During the countdown today there were several attempts made to lift off but various factors stopped that from happening. Two of the attempts were aborted due to higher than expected wind gusts during the final four minutes of the count. The issue that ultimately stopped the launch was with the fill/drain valves in the rocket core stages. Two of them had failed to close correctly and despite a valiant effort by the team they were not able to resolve it in time to launch in the window available.
Another attempt will be made tomorrow morning Friday 12/5 with the launch window again opening at 7:05am EST, the weather forecast for the launch calls for a 60% chance that the weather will violate the launch criteria.
Below are some screen grabs taken during the countdown, we will post later today with the Ariane 5 launch.
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