It’s been a rollercoaster ride for the Gilmour Space Technologies crew after two scrubbed launch attempts in the past week.
The Eris TestFlight1 mission has now been put on hold, and most of the team have moved back to the company’s Gold Coast headquarters to further investigate the electrical and electronics problem that caused a nose cone malfunction last week.
InnovationAus.com’s Commercial Disco podcast spoke to company co-founder Adam Gilmour at the weekend to get an update on the remedial actions being taken after a tumultuous week at the Bowen Orbital Spaceport last week.
Scrubbed launches are a normal part of the commercial launch sector, and this is especially the case when it is a brand new rocket design being tested for the first time, Mr Gilmour says.
Like most successful entrepreneurs, Adam Gilmour is both a relentless pragmatist and an overwhelming optimist. But the last week has been tough, and it is impossible to miss the bone weary disappointment in his voice.
You can listen to the full podcast interview here.
Through its normal countdown process, which starts about four days ahead of launch, the Gilmour team was working through a procedural checklist looking at all of the different sub-systems that are critical to launch.
That work is done as part of the preparation to get to the part of the countdown where the team would start loading the fuels, which the company did not get to on either of last week’s launch windows.
The team was close to loading fuels. It had uncovered a few issues along the way – which is the purpose of the checklist procedures – and those were bring dealt with along the way.
“We’ve done rehearsals before, but for the first time – because we’re in launch mode – we energised the stage separation mechanisms and the payload fearing,” Mr Gilmour told The Commercial Disco.
“Energised means you fill them with gas, [and] turn them on, so they are kind of flight ready. That was the first time we have had them energised,” he said.
“We are investigating why this happened, but it looks like in some of our testing procedures we turned off the flight computer and the energy system of the second stage, and for some reason that has triggered the payload fairing to go.
“So that seems to be the root cause … when we turned off the second stage, it seemed to trigger the payload fairing to go through its separation sequence and separate.”
He says there is a lot more investigating to be done in the days ahead. The fairing behaved as it should have in that its two sides shot clear of the rocket so that no damage was caused to either to the vehicle, or to any of the launch infrastructure on the ground.
The payload fairing was damaged having fallen from 30-odd metres to land on the concrete pad. Mr Gilmour said one of the two spare nose cones was immediately dispatched from the company’s Gold Coast manufacturing facility and has already arrived at the Bowen spaceport.
Gilmour Space has not announced when it will open its next launch window and recommence its Eris TestFlight1 countdown, pending the outcome of its investigations.
You can hear the full story of last week’s dramatic events here, including a rundown of the lessons learned and the road ahead.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.