Tuesday, September 7, 2010

A scrub for Copenhagen Orbitals

 

Tweeting from their home made submarine has confirmed their initial suborbital launch has been scrubbed due to a blocked oxidizer nozzle.  The oxidizer nozzle controls the flow of oxidizer on its way to mix with liquid fuel before combustion.  It is common with liquid oxygen as an oxidizer to have this nozzle "freeze up" and become blocked.  Usually, some kind of heating element is generally used to "de-ice" the nozzle before launch.  Rumor is those crafty Danes were using a simple hair dryer to accomplish this task.  This could possibly be cause of the failure.  Keep an eye on their website for further developments.

    Launch is most likely going to be delayed until 2011.