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SpaceX Launch Fails To Reach Space
azuredrake and many other readers have written to tell us:
"The New York Times reports that the third SpaceX launch has failed following the second-stage ignition of the Falcon 1 rocket. The SpaceX launch had three satellites on board, all of which were presumably destroyed in the incident. This marks the third failed launch for SpaceX — twice they failed to reach orbit, and once the Falcon 1 rocket was lost five minutes after launch. While the company vows to carry on, this certainly raises some questions about the likelihood of successful privatization of the Space industry."
Reader Nano2Sol points out a video of the launch from a camera on Falcon 1, and notes a small oscillation just prior to the footage being cut off. Spaceflight Now ran a mission update blog leading up to the failure, and they also have more coverage on the loss of the rocket.
I watched this launch last night as it was happening and it was quite a thrilling experience. Better than any NASA launch I have ever seen. They aborted the launch a few times but still went for it. The camera they had on the rocket as it lifted off gave a breathtaking view of the Earth very slowly ascending from it's island launchpad location. Then it just crapped out before it looked like it was anywhere near orbit. I wasn't sure if the mission had been a success or not until the webcast updated that it had been a failure. This is totally awesome. We've been hearing about Space-X on Slashdot for years but this is the first time I've ever given them any real attention. They have 2 more of these Falcon-1 rockets ready, and another launch window near the end of this month. Musk seems absolutely determined to succeed, and I would suspect in 10-15 years these Space-X guys will be the next Lockheed Martin or Boeing.
You know it is quality control. Where I work I have to be NASA certified in ESD(Electro-Static Discharge) and let me tell you, they are crazy about all the little things. For instance when a bit of equipment is in the high bay you have to go through the clean room, you have to be grounded not only on your hands but your feet as well. Before you every plug anything in to a socket you have to run it over a fan that blows ions at it to negate any electrical charge. They have the craziest quality control that you have ever seen and they still have shit go wrong sometimes.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
Actually, there were multiple serious incidents... For example: Apollo 14 couldn't dock with the LM while extracting it from the S-IVB stage - so they (literally) rammed the CSM into the LM, exceeding the allowed force to force docking. During the landing, the LM lost the landing radar, rather than aborting the pilot continued the landing. While Apollo 16 was in orbit around the moon, and prior to separating the LM, it was discovered the wiring harness for the CSM propulsion system was seriously damaged. Mission rules required an abort of the landing and a return to Earth (so that the LM propulsion would be available as a backup) - but they waived that rule and proceeded with the mission anyhow. (Not to mention that the accident on 13 wouldn't have happened if they had investigated the faulty LOX tank rather than improvising an emptying procedure and using the equipment outside of it's design specs.)
SpaceX are infinitely more likely to reach orbit than Scaled Composites.
HEY!!! You are dissing one of my heroes!
In all seriousness, I would be very curious to find out why you think so. I would expect the opposite, in fact. Burt Rutan is very definitely an engineer with decades of aerospace experience under his belt. Elon Musk is neither an engineer nor experienced, at least in aerospace. Reading a recent article on the development of the Tesla Roadster, I found myself shaking my head at some of the design constraints Musk demanded. If he runs SpaceX the same way the article alleged Musk ran Tesla, I am not surprised they are having difficulties.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
I use to work on Kwajalein, and have a friend who was in mission control all day... I can guarantee you they had a lot of VERY expensive camera systems and radar keeping an eye on that launch. I doubt much if any of that data will ever be made public however.
As for the "anomaly" thing, the rocket didn't blow up, they hit the big red panic button to blow it up rather than have one large toxic rocket possibly land on something important (although one of the main reasons the Kwajalein Atoll is used, is because there's not much out there, that and the physics advantages of being near the equator).
Wonder how many failed test launches the programs that led up to the Titan, Atlas and Apollo rockets had though, before the products was "finalized".
I grew up more or less in the shadow of the launch pads at Canaveral, back in the 50's, and can attest that there were a tremendous number of failures back in those days.
In particular, the Navajo, Atlas, and Polaris programs produced one stupefying fireball after another. And all of the other programs at the time had more than their share of flaming wreckage falling out of the sky.
To this day, when I watch fireworks, it doesn't really do all that much for me. It just doesn't compare.
And, as a small child at the time, I had no feelings of loss or remorse when any of these (thankfully unmanned) launch vehicles met their premature demise in the skies above the Atlantic Ocean, but instead loved every minute of it. Helluva damn show!
They finally got the hang of it (for the most part, anyway), and things quit blowing up on such a regular basis, but for a while there it was really quite spectacular.
SpaceX has their work cut out for them. In spades.
I wish them nothing but the very best of luck.
Is it fascism yet?