United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced at around 7:00 pm EST on Saturday (0000 GMT Sunday), just before the start of the countdown for the planned liftoff, that the Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) mission aboard the Atlas V rocket launch will be delayed. It was originally scheduled to launch Sunday but pushed back early Tuesday morning, after discovering a kerosene fuel leak in the ground storage system in the launchpad.
"During initial operations, a leak was discovered in the Rocket Propellant-1 (RP-1) ground storage system," ULA said in a brief statement as quoted by Spaceflight Now.
Fuel Leak Delays Atlas V Launch
According to the news outlet, RP-1 is high-grade rocket kerosene used in the first stage of the Atlas V rocket, which is a Russian-made RD-180 engine that consumes a mixture of kerosene and liquid oxygen.
The kerosene fuel was due to be put on the Atlas 5 first stage on Friday afternoon, December 3, after deploying the rocket from the Vertical Integration Facility of ULA to launchpad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
But they were unable to complete the process and the management has not released any statements as to why. Due to that, it was delayed on Saturday, December 4.
The team responsible for the Atlas V rocket launch loads cryogenic propellants into the rocket just a few hours before its scheduled launch. The upper stage of the rocket uses super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
After discovering the kerosene fuel leak, ULA decided to reschedule the rocket launch on Monday, December 6. However, the officials announced on Sunday afternoon that they would be moving it to early Tuesday morning to test a fuel sample and make sure that the kerosene fuel was not contaminated during the leak.
They have already completed the repairs and will be ready for the Tuesday rocket launch after a 48-hour delay. The weather outlook from the US Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron reports an 80% chance of favorable weather for liftoff at 4:04 am EST (0904 GMT).
The launch of a ULA #AtlasV 551 rocket carrying #STP3 for the @SpaceForceDOD @USSF_SSC has been scrubbed. The team repaired the ground storage system but will require additional time to verify the sample integrity of the fuel prior to tanking operations.
— ULA (@ulalaunch) December 5, 2021
Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) Carries Payloads for NASA and USSF
Local news outlet WFTV reported that the recently delayed launch of the ATLAS V rocket is part of the STP-3 mission that will carry payloads from NASA and the US Space Force (USSF). The mission includes flying advanced technology to space, and most of them are classified, but some are not.
One of the payloads the rocket is carrying is the two satellites called STPSat-6 that carry the new NASA laser-communication system, Space.com reported. The second one is a National Nuclear Security Administration payload that can detect the detonation of nuclear bombs even from space.
Following the STP-3 launch, the Russian Soyuz rocket is scheduled to launch Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and two others towards the International Space Station early Wednesday morning, December 8. More so, the Rocket Lab Electron booster will also send two commercial Earth-observer satellites on low-Earth orbit on the same night.
By December 9, NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer satellite will be launched onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Meanwhile, Blue Origin's NS-19 space tourism mission, carrying former NFL star and "Good Morning America" host Michael Strahan and Alan Shepard's eldest daughter Laura Shepard Churchley, will also launch on the same day.
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