CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, FL – With barely 30 minutes to go to liftoff, rocket maker United Launch Alliance (ULA) abruptly scrubbed the launch of their mighty Atlas V 551 rocket carrying Amazon’s second Project Kuiper mission, Kuiper 2, due to an elevated purge temperature with the RD-180 booster engine seen in engineering observations in the final stages of the countdown on Monday, June 16.
Otherwise the weather was picture perfect as ULA was targeting launch of Kuiper 2 broadband internet satellites on the most powerful version of their venerable Atlas V rocket nicknamed “The Bruiser” from Space Launch Complex-41 at 1:25 p.m. EDT.
ULA did not set a new launch date while considering options of how to proceed.
The Atlas V was nearing completion of fueling with propellant into the first and second stage.
Enjoy our prelaunch and launch viewing photos from the Space UpClose team of Ken Kremer and Jean Wright taken Fathers Day, June 15, during media remote camera setup at pad 41 and on Monday, June 16.
See the LOX venting in our lead image taken by our remote cameras at pad 41.
“Filling of the Centaur upper stage liquid hydrogen tank has been completed. Topping mode is now underway to give us a rocket weighing 1.29 million pounds (587,000 kg) for launch. The cryogenics will be replenished throughout the countdown until the final minutes before launch to replace the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen that naturally boils away, ULA reported at 12:35 pm shortly before the scrub was called at 12:51 p.m. EDT.
ULA CEO Tory Bruno stated “Possible issue with a GN2 purge line that cannot be resolved inside the count. We will need to stand down for today. We’ll sort it and be back.”
Eventually ULA decided to roll the Atlas V back to the VIF processing hangar for further evaluation and fixes.
“We’re preparing to launch our next batch of Project Kuiper satellites with United Launch Alliance (ULA). Named KA-02 for our second Kuiper launch on an Atlas V rocket, the mission will send another 27 satellites into orbit, bringing our total constellation size to 54 satellites,” said Amazon.
ULA will deploy the satellites at an altitude of 280 miles (450 kilometers) above Earth
Thereafter “the Project Kuiper team will take over command of the mission from our 24/7 mission operations center in Redmond, Washington, confirm satellite health, and ultimately raise the satellites to their assigned orbit of 392 miles (630 km) above Earth.”
The Atlas V will launch in its most powerful 551 configuration known as “The Bruiser” – spewing over 2.5 million pounds of liftoff thrust from the first stage powered by a dual nozzle RD-180 engine and 5 strap on solid rocket boosters SRBs.
The Atlas V will launch on a northeasterly trajectory up the US East Coast
Kuiper-2 marks the second of many full-scale launches in service of Amazon’s Project Kuiper under contract to ULA
The Kuiper constellation will eventually comprise over 3200 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO).
The Kuiper satellites will be launched across 98 orbital planes at 590 km, 610 km and 630 km in altitude.
