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SpaceX Delays Falcon 9 Launch
stoolpigeon writes to tell us that Elon Musk recently announced a delay to the projected summer launch for SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule. "Falcon 9 is the centerpiece of SpaceX's project for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) project. NASA is hoping to be able to draw on new and cheaper commercial rockets to service the International Space Station once the shuttle fleet retires in 2010. If the trial flight of Falcon 9 early next year is a success, payload-carrying COTS missions could follow in quick succession. But the delay is worrying some observers who note that SpaceX's other rocket project, the Falcon 1, has failed during its only two launch attempts. The first Falcon 1 caught fire and crashed, and the second failed to achieve orbit due to problems during stage separation. A third Falcon 1 launch is planned for April."
Two failures and one delay? And one of the failures wasn't that bad? For a brand new company and new rocket tech? Considering how many outright explosions and multiple failures NASA and all others did before they got it right, I'd say they are doing just fine. I bet NASA wishes they had that success rate!
It's not like Musk has a whole governments space programs budget to throw at it. (Which is pitifully small BTW.) He is being careful with his money. That sounds wise, and certainly not something I'd be worried about.
Jeesh, It's not like it's Rocket Science to understand it...
Your Moon, Your Mission, Get involved! http://www.openluna.org
And the article mentions that much of the delay is due to a huge increase in paperwork. The have changed their launch site to the Cape instead of the Kwajalein Atoll that they had originally planned to use, and as a consequence are faced with a maze of new documents that the Air Force is requiring that they submit.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
If the schedule for the next Falcon 1 launch is pushed back any further Musk might as well go back to writing software.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Alright, I just have to rant about this.
/rant over
We are eight years into the new millennium. We chose to go to the moon forty-six years ago. I want you to think about that. Not a decade ago. Not even a generation ago. Forty-six years. In some places, two full generations have been born, lived, and passed into history since John F. Kennedy spoke those words to a packed crowd in Houston. And yet here we are, nigh on a half a century of unimaginable innovation later, and we have lost our courage and our way. Not when the stakes were high, not when the risk was great, but now, when bolder men than we have already faced the greatest challenges, we find that we no longer dare to set foot into the void.
It isn't that we don't have the technology. And certainly no newfound danger has emerged to lend credence to the sophists' snivelling. We have, indisputably, the technology, the capital, and the infrastructure to once again walk among the stars. Butt he truth is that we have shrunk away from it, that our collective cowardice and the braying of the bean-counters has emasculated the quintessentially human pursuit of the unknown in its most compelling form. I hate to see what it has done to our country, to our stature in the world, and to the dreams common to all men whose eyes behold the stars- that space seems no nearer to us today than it did on the eve of Apollo 1. I fear that somewhere above us, in the cramped tube that has become the locus of all our space-bound endeavours, those dreams have gone to die. I can say no more than that it appalls me, and that for all the world our hopes are that much less bright for having abandoned the challenge of our age.
You are absolutely right. If you look to much earlier rocketry development programs, ie Dr. Robert Goddard and Dr. Werner Braun (ignoring any politics of either, just the pure research, engineering and development effort) Developing Rockets are Hard. SpaceX lost their first rocket because of a corroded aluminum nut securing a fuel line. I think it is worth pointing out a number of facts with this accident. The Falcon 1 launch vehicle have an in flight rapid disassembly event (explosion for those desiring a non-obfuscated tone). The nut failed, fuel spewed from the line, combusting when it reached into the rocket's plume, this caused a fire in the region of the Falcon 1's fuel pumps, gutting control wiring and other fuel lines. Result-- the engine simply shut down. The rocket fell onto the reef offshore and was destroyed. As a result SpaceX reviewed the engine design and one of the changes was to replace all aluminum nuts with stainless steel. Equivelent mass, not prone to corrosion and cheaper as an additional benefit. The second flight's failure was due to the wrong flight profile being loaded into the first stage's engine's computer(s). As a result the fuel/oxidizer mix fed to the engine wasn't quite optimal, resulting in the first stage engine cutoff (MECO) occured at a lower altitude than intended. At that point in flight the Falcon 1's orientation, with respect to it's trajectory (it's 'angle of attack') was enough that aerodynamic forces from the dynamic pressure (the atmospheric pressure at altitude considering the vehicle's velocity through it) caused the Falcon 1 first stage as it was jettisoned to pitch more than expected. This resulted in the first stage coming into contact with the second stage's engine bell. This resulted in the second stage in being rotated about it's center of mass a bit. The second stage Kestral engine pivoted to correct the second stage's orientation onto the correct vector. This resulted in an increasing oscillation that toward the end of the second stage's burn, as the mass of the vehicle was less and less. This resulted in the remaining fuel in the propellant tanks sloshing away from the fuel tank's sump. The Second stage engine cut off prematurely, below orbital velocity and the vehicle reentered. Lessons and modifications taken from this. Confirm that the proper engine software is loaded onto the vehicle, and the installation of an anti-slosh baffles in the propellant tanks. In this case the vehicle engines or structure did not fail catastrophically. The upcoming flight is takes the lessons learned from all of this, and is a flight test for the new Merlin 1C engine, which will be used on the Falcon 9 when it flies. Spaceflight is hard. SpaceX is standing on the shoulder's of giants, and still there is much to learn, old lessons to apply, and new breakthroughs to be made. But the goal is worthwhile.
For launches from Canaveral, I believe EWR-127 applies. I don't know if it applies to Kwaj.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Well, there is no doubt that many presidents since Kennedy/LBJ dropped the ball. I will say that things are not a total waste. While Nixon gave us the shuttle era, and reagan, Bushes, and Clinton gave us the ISS, a number of tech sprang from these. Probably most of all, is spacex and bigelow. The reason is that both of these companies CEOs are driven to go not to LEO, but to the moon and mars. And they want to do it CHEAP. Musk has built a rocket that is suppose to be cheaper than Russias, EU, India, Japan, AND even CHina with their yuan tied to the dollar. What many forget is that as long as he gets the falcon 1 and falcon 9 working, he starts profitable. Why? He has not only COTs, but he has the military, and other systems lining up. While we all know about failures of the 2 launches, what many missed, is that he launched the falcon 1 with less than 25 guys (I think that it was only 12 on-site). The Falcon 9 with a crewed config is still expected to be less than 100. The shuttle take several thousand at launch time. And of course, Musk has another rocket waiting in the wings. It is apparently smaller than Saturn V, but bigger than the next larger one. The idea is that once the launch rate is up, he will introduce it. He is expecting that around 2012-2013. While smaller than the Ares V, it will again be CHEAP, and designed to launch ~100,000KG to LEO, with perhaps 35-45,000 KG to the moon. Realize that even 35000 KG to the moon is more than all of the current rockets take to LEO. All in all, he will make space access cheap enough that businesses and rich folks will go.
Bigelow is using not just the transhab that sprang from the ISS, but is looking to use NASA's Life Support System. In the end, like spacex, his system costs will be very low. Bigelow first design is to operate in LEO, and will operate a multiple of these. But the design is to be used also for transportation as well as lunar and possibly Martian habitation. He is hoping to use these to carry ppl to the moon/mars , which is why they are so big. And his group is actively working on ideas and designs on mining and farming on the moon.
Even others are getting in on cheap access. Richard Branson's Virgin Galatic is looking to initially provide low orbital shots into space, followed by HOPEFULLY, even cheaper access to LEO. It is not likely that they will be able to put 100K KG worth of cargo up cheap, but they will hopefully be able to carry up the most difficult load (life) up cheap. I would not be surprised to see Branson decide to purchase a bigelow system to use as a hotel and perhaps a couple of falcon 9's.
Yes, through my lifetime, only 1 president has had a great vision of space, and that was kennedy (johnson simply followed his policy and all others have either been neutral or have taken us backwards). But Griffin's push on COTs made spaceX profitable. That policy has allowed Musk the chance to be profitable enough with this company that he is relatively risk free to work on bigger plans. Bigelow bought the rights to Transhab, a development from ISS, and he is now pushing to make even LMart do a large number of low-costs rockets.
Combine the cheap access, habitation with all the groups working on space access, mining, and innovation, and I now have hope that my kids will be able to settle on Mars. THings are looking to be back on track.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You did notice the announcement on the Chinese lander, yes? It's launch was moved from 2012-2014, to 2009. It should be obvious that their announcements of timeline and capabilities are false. That is going to spark the next space race. The next president will be forced to deal with that. In particular, one of the real issues will be weaponization. China is pushing for us not to weaponize space, while they are developing such systems. In fact, I am guessing that once China puts a lander on the moon, even Obama will push to speed up NASA, not slow it down. But I suspect that he will create a COTs II for doing it. The reason is that by the end of 2009, I believe that Musk will actually have the dragon certified (in spite of the new launch manifest).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yep. Either the baffles *or* the correct trajectory would have been enough to make the mission a success. Even the payload separated -- just in the wrong trajectory. They got about 2/3 of the delta-V they needed.
:)
For a practically from-scratch, they've done a heck of a job, and I like their design. And I was very impressed by how rapidly they're able to turn around on launch attempts. Here's to the next Falcon 1 launch!
If Assange fell off a cliff, his ghost would declare it a victory.
The most recent launch vehicle developed by NASA the space shuttle, which was successful on its first 24 launches. After the first failure, it succeeded on the next hundred launches before the next failure.
Before that, the previous vehicle developed by NASA was the Saturn-V, ten launches, no failures.
Before that, the Saturn 1/1b, nineteen launches, no failures.
Why in the world would NASA "wish they had a success rate" of 0 successes?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
The Saturn V and Saturn I(b) rockets were designed by a team that had more than twenty years' experience, going back to before the V-1. They blew up more than their share of rockets, not all of them deliberately.
Indeed, the Saturns were designed by Von Braun's team that in NASA's early days had been working out of the Redstone Arsenal. The rockets that NASA was designing on its own at that time were blowing up with depressing regularity; if Eisenhower had let them, the Von Braun team could have put something in orbit before the Russians did.
Shuttle may have made its first few launches successfully, but they blew up their fair share of hardware during testing (the SSMEs in particular were a bitch). They had couple of decades of experience with large solids (initially for Titan III, developed in part for the Air Force's MOL program) by then, too.
Not to mention that NASA had a development budget several orders of magnitude larger than SpaceX's.
On paper, rocket science isn't that hard. The thing is, a lot of it isn't on paper as such, it comes with the experience that tells you to use stainless steel nuts instead of aluminum ones, or to make sure your LOX valves don't get condensation and ice on them that freezes them shut, or to triple check that you've got the right software loaded.
-- Alastair
In my experience, Canaveral and Vandenberg are the least forgiving at these negotiations, while more remote ranges (like Kodiak, Kwaj, and PWMR) are more liberal.
I can see the fnords!
Actually, V-1 wasn't a rocket, it was a pulse jet; and it wasn't the Von Braun team; it was their competitors
...Indeed, the Saturns were designed by Von Braun's team that in NASA's early days had been working out of the Redstone Arsenal. The rockets that NASA was designing on its own at that time were blowing up with depressing regularity;I expect you must be thinking of Project Vanguard. That predates NASA-- it was a NRL (Navy Research Labs) project. if Eisenhower had let them, the Von Braun team could have put something in orbit before the Russians did.
Shuttle may have made its first few launches successfully, but they blew up their fair share of hardware during testing (the SSMEs in particular were a bitch). They had couple of decades of experience with large solids (initially for Titan III, developed in part for the Air Force's MOL program) by then, too.
Not to mention that NASA had a development budget several orders of magnitude larger than SpaceX's.
On paper, rocket science isn't that hard. The thing is, a lot of it isn't on paper as such, it comes with the experience that tells you to use stainless steel nuts instead of aluminum ones, or to make sure your LOX valves don't get condensation and ice on them that freezes them shut, or to triple check that you've got the right software loaded.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Instead I would suspect first that the control routine was just not quite acting quick enough to stabilize the vehicle. As the rotational inertia dropped, the slow reaction time of the control routine allowed greater deviations. Yet if the control system was totally too slow to keep control of the vehicle I would have expected it to just totally loose control much more quickly than it did. Instead I expect the slowness may have been the result of a non linear factor in the control routine that commanded less drastic corrections for less drastic deviations, yet increased corrections sufficiently as the deviations increased.
I doubt that slosh baffles will solve this problem and I don't think a smoother stage separation will have any significant benefit. SpaceX says third party experts have verified their conclusion "that LOX slosh was the primary contributor to this instability". If SpaceX believes this is the primary problem and it's not, then there is a great danger that their solution won't be adequate.
Actually, V-1 wasn't a rocket, it was a pulse jet;
You're right, that was a brain spasm. Of course I meant V-2.
-- Alastair
I should point out that there have been some of the design team of the Saturn rockets (both Saturn I and Saturn V) that considered themselves to be "lucky" that they didn't have any failures, rather than 100% success.
Had the Saturn rockets gone on to fly the equivalent of the number of flights that the Shuttle program has gone through, you would have seen perhaps a similar level of rocketry failure. It may not have been as catastrophic in terms of loss of human life (the Shuttle is particularly awful on that point) due to emergency provisions like the Launch Escape Tower (a launch problem like what hit the Challenger might have been survived by the astronauts on a Saturn V), but you would still have seen a failure rate.
This is also clearly ignoring the early history of NASA, when they were using Redstone rockets, the Atlas, and other rockets in the early days of the Mercury program.... some of which were even televised "live" on network television and had them blow up spectacularly before the American public. Those televised launches were especially interesting, as they weren't really supposed to be "prototypes" of the typical sort, but rather preliminary launches to demonstrate capsule performance... and still failed. It got so bad that comedians of the time were making jokes asking if NASA could even potentially send an astronaut into space at all, and congressmen wondering why Russia could "do it" but not NASA.
SpaceX has made some mistakes, but they are sitting in a much better position than NASA was in the early 1960's. I'll also have to admit that the reason SpaceX is in the position they are in is due to the knowledge gained by NASA and the U.S. military back in the 1950's and 1960's as well (not to mention other rocket developers), but I wouldn't condemn them for not trying. At least they have tried to put hardware up, rather than spend billions on worthless "studies" that never get launched in the first place, which seems to be NASA current design approach.
Geoffrey Landis commented on my post??
Cool!
BTW, Geoff, I'd love having you back at Norwescon one of these years. You were a great Science GoH.
Of course I was making some generalizations. The paragraph about NASA would have gotten rather unwieldy very shortly.
SpaceX did not integrate every possibly lesson from every possible launch vehicle program by all of the various groups.
They did not take into account that hot, humid, salty sea air + aluminum nut with a scratch it its paint = possible failure of said nut.
For two flights they are almost to a walk from a crawl is my view (for what it's worth). Elon has a flight manifest that is pretty full, a near working launch vehicle, and two other models on the way. He has a passion for this in sinking his fortune into it.
He has stated "When people ask me why I started a rocket company, I say, 'I was trying to learn how to turn a large fortune into a small one.' " (http://www.spacex.com/media.php?page=42). I think he has the right attitude, that he could go broke doing this. The development of the railroad network across North America in the 19th century certainly cost a number of men and shareholders their wealth, but the result was the powerhouse that America's industries became.
I should have appended IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist) or IANAE (economist) either, but it's a subject that I have some knowledge about and quite a bit of passion, more on those two counts than many people I know and meet.
Thank you for your time.
I do want to emphasize that at no point have I condemned Space-X, and most certainly you can't criticize them for not trying. My respect for Space-X goes up a notch every time they follow up a failure with a commitment to learn from their mistakes and keep on working. This is something to be admired, not condemned. They are out there proving that they've got what it takes.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com