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SpaceX Launch Failure Due To Timing Problem
FleaPlus writes "Private orbital spaceflight company SpaceX recently announced that last weekend's Falcon 1 rocket launch failure was caused by a collision between the first and second stage of their rocket. This was due to a timing problem, when their brand-new engine design produced residual thrust for 1.5 seconds longer than expected; they're currently working to fix the problem and launch again, perhaps as early as next month. In a recent interview with Wired, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk remarked on their efforts: "Optimism, pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.""
Silly me. And here I was thinking it was due to a crashing problem...
This guy's the limit!
As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.
Something tells me that perhaps he doesn't genuinely, really believe that God is his witness... :)
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
Did it have the mortal remains of any famous actors onboard?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Or are they just pushing the ashes of dead movie stars into low earth orbit?
Optimism, pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work
Now that sounds like a man who gets things done.
Personally, I blame Newton.
Wow, it's like listening to Ahab rant about getting Moby-Dick. Hopefully this will have a better outcome.
"produced residual thrust for 1.5 seconds longer than expected" Cut back on the Viagra next time?
"Optimism, pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work." I can't find a reference to that quote in the wired article or on google.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has watched There will be blood too many times.
And I fully expect them to be a major player in the future of commercial space travel.
They've done some absolutely amazing things in the last couple of years on a budget that makes all the governments combined look pretty silly. They remind me of Reid Malenfant and his outfit (only a bit more realistic), and I don't think any issues that crop up during this test stage are going to slow them down for long.
Maybe the 21st century will see some serious space exploration after all, instead of all those 'feel good' missions. $/kg to orbit is the only significant number for the next two decades or so, once there is enough construction capability up there to start hauling stuff inbound it should get interesting indeed.
MP3 Search Engine
"Would you consider that a launch problem or a design problem?"
- Chris Knight
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
If NASA had that attitude, we never would have had a decade of stagnation after the first Shuttle accident. We'd have a moon colony by now. The problem is that the people at top too often see these kind of events as a signal to stop, where it really should be a sign that they're almost there. Remember when the Delta rocket flew and then fell over and burst into flames because of failed landing gear? LANDING GEAR! Something trivial to engineer (compared to the rest), and the project is shelved because of that failure. They should have kept going.
Argh. Enough of my ranting, you people get the idea. I just wish the pointy haired bosses did.
I hate to say this, but the CEO has an attitude problem.
He needs to do some reading up on the reviews of NASA after the two shuttle disasters. In both cases overconfidence, and management overruling/ignoring the views of engineers were found to be major factors.
If he keeps running "hell-bent" towards his goal he's never going to reach it.
If NASA had that attitude, we never would have had a decade of stagnation after the first Shuttle accident. We'd have a moon colony by now. The problem is that the people at top too often see these kind of events as a signal to stop, where it really should be a sign that they're almost there. Remember when the Delta rocket flew and then fell over and burst into flames because of failed landing gear? LANDING GEAR! Something trivial to engineer (compared to the rest), and the project is shelved because of that failure. They should have kept going.
Argh. Enough of my ranting, you people get the idea. I just wish the pointy haired bosses did.
if Musk et al. has an accident where someone dies, I bet the FAA and others will be introducing some delays in his schedule. And I'm sure they'll some public outcry that he's flying over people and putting them in jeopardy - whether or not it's true.
We've lost our sense of adventure, the acceptance of risk and, well, we've become a society that's so bent on being safe that we're afraid to take any warranted risks: we've become a society of pansies.
"I'm hell-bent on making it work." Then he will succeed, because as everyone knows the Road to Hell is paved with good inventions!
Smivs on the intertubes!
Missed it by 'that much'. Best of luck SpaceX, we're rooting for number 4 to make orbit.
Space flights have often lead to mid-air explosions, even with successful, well-known launchers.
Although i hope theses companies will succeed (for the progress of science), I wonder if it is really ready for commercial flights. The first flight which ends up with the death of a customer will scare away all potential customers and stop investment for 10 years...
I take it he's also going to kick Bishop Brennan up the arse as well for good measure?
I haven't RTFA, but are these things timed individually?
Call me crazy, but shouldn't each part be communicating with the other parts so that they can synchronize?
>> The first flight which ends up with the death of a customer will scare away all potential customers and stop investment for 10 years... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_accidents_and_incidents_on_commercial_aircraft
General Patton would have disagreed. He understood the problems faced by his "team" and inspired them to overcome incredible odds. Sometimes a little profanity can be inspiring, if not used gratuitously.
>>Would you like to work for such a man?
Yes, actually I would. Because that sort of man, and the people who work for him, are going to do great things! That's real passion, which is sadly lacking from most corporations. He's not just your average CEO coasting toward a golden parachute and a retirement filled with golf and tea parties -- he's trying to overcome incredible odds to get a vehicle into space.
"Optimism, pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work." Wow, I admire his grit.
prepare the survey weasels.
I have a hard time believing that this thing has a distributor. Most modern systems have gone to a computer controlled wasted spark ignition.
On my cars that had advanced ignition, though, I would see these symptoms (run-on). Retarding the ignition, using higher octane fuel, cleaning carbon deposits in the combustion chamber, or just dropping the clutch with it in gear (3rd or 4th work best) will mostly solve these problems.
Geez, it isn't rocket science, after all.
| If NASA had that attitude, we never would have had a decade of stagnation after the first Shuttle accident.
Listen, lad. I've built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. All the kings said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. An' that's what your gonna get, lad -- the strongest castle in these islands.
I think it shows the kind of incredible resolve it takes to do rocket science. I think it's the same resolve the Apollo program had, and I think it's infectious. It's one thing to be balls to the wall but have no demonstrative ability to execute, but remember that Flight 2 actually did make it up there. And that NASA and the US Government have enough confidence in their ability to give them major contracts. For those invoking the Ahab thing, I just don't see that. 5-1 odds they nail it in Flight 4.
...is blaspheme, if I wanted my rocket to lift off successfully.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Actually, that's basically what happened. The Kestrel engine on the second stage ignited, and the exhaust from it pushed the first stage away. The problem is that the second stage is designed to have the exhaust expanding into the vacuum of space, and having the first stage right there meant that the exhaust was contained within (or perhaps I should say, was redirected by) the interstage. Normally, the first stage and second stage are pneumatically pushed apart just before the second stage fires.
The exhaust was only in contact with the second stage for a very short period of time, but that was sufficient to "roast" the second stage enough to cause failure, either due to direct thermal effects or the forces created by the expanding exhaust (or to a combination of those factors).
By the way, the nozzle of the Kestrel engine is radiatively cooled. Before the sloshing doomed flight two, it was cool (figuratively only!) to see the bell glowing brightly. Some people watching with me thought it was failing until I explained that it's supposed to look like that. ;)
When I thrust 1.5 seconds longer than expected, my wife goes into orbit. I don't see what their problem is.
While I agree that a certain amount of enthusiasm is necessary for a grand undertaking such as this, it is entirely too easy for a manager to be too enthusiastic, ignoring or minimizing serious issues for the sake of maintaining forward progress.
James R. Chiles, in his book Inviting Disaster spends an entire chapter ("Doubtless") on this. He shows time and again how overconfident managers willingly blinded themselves to serious flaws in their programs, and were then surprised when those same flaws came to endanger human life and property.
If I was an investor in SpaceX, I would be asking some very hard questions right now. I would certainly not be accepting Musk's characterization of this issue as a "quirk" or "small problem". SpaceX has had three real launches, in addition to innumerable hours of simulator and modeling time. Why was a serious issue like this not caught earlier? What other mission ending issues are there with the rocket? How confident are the working engineers' answers to the above two questions?
SpaceX is not NASA. They don't have the luxury of an unlimited budget and governmental mandate. As such, their margin for error is correspondingly slimmer, and the board's tolerance for daredevilry should be correspondingly lower.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Yes, the events are synchronized. Main engine cut-off occurs 1.5 seconds before the stage separation pyros fire.
When engine cut-off occurs, valves close to shut off fuel from the pumps. However, there is still fuel left in the lines that finishes burning resulting in a little residual thrust. In their previous test flight, this finished within that 1.5 seconds. However, this launch used a new engine design.
The previous engine design was ablatively cooled. This means the engine nozzle is kept from melting by small amounts of material continuously burning off and carrying heat away. It's pretty analogous to sweating. The newer Merlin 1C is regeneratively cooled, which increases the performance and efficiency of the engine by running the cold fuel through small pipes that surround the engine nozzle for cooling.
These cooling channels means there's more volume of fuel left in the system at cut-off, and the burn ends up being slightly longer. Musk has stated that this didn't show up as a problem on the test stand because of the pressure difference at sea level versus the near vaccuum where staging occured. 14.7 psi across a half-meter or so rocket nozzle amounts to a few thousand pounds of thrust. However, if you watch the test videos they've published, there's noticeably more flame after cutoff in the regenerative version, so I'm frankly kind of surprised they didn't increase their timing margin.
The end result was that the 1st stage bumped back into the 2nd stage after separation, and then got toasted by and deflected flame back at the 2nd stage, apparently seriously damaging it.
I have to nitpick one of Musk's other statements. He claimed that the performance of the first stage was picture perfect. However, while the engine appeared to perform great, it seems the avionics could have done at least slightly better. The video shows a back and forth rolling motion that is probably due to the torque created as the fuel swirls through those cooling channels. Ideally the control system would have been able to account for that smoothly.
When they get the bugs out. All liquid, no solids. Solids should never be used for a man-rated system. It should be expandable to an ultra-heavy version out-lifting the proposed Nova.
IANARS, but...
A timing fix sounds iffy- timing caused the problem in the first place.
How about using accelerometer data instead. When g-sensors show that the booster stage has stopped thrusting, you're coasting; maybe wait a second for things to settle, and THEN start stage 2.
Am I missing something? Or should I be a rocket scientist?
I don't know the situation here. Are NASA giving SpaceX any access to their files - at all ?
I know they are supposed to be privately financed and new from the ground up, but surely if the aim is to get the cheapest, most efficient way to orbit, then they should consider sharing their extensive knowledge and experience.
After all, they are looking to fly their missions using this gear. And if the knowledge is available, then ALL the companies in this race could be using it. I don't see why this endeavour should suffer due to stupid IP rules.
Pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work.
I think someone has been watching too much Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen shows. Seriously, I find myself swearing at times (specially after a few late ones) but if I was making a public interview after my rocket basically fizzled, I think I would be able to knock it off for a tick.
Fucking space cowboys!
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
metric or Imperial seconds?
Sig this!
Isn't that what it's all about? Fuck that--I'm going to make it work. I needed that right about now.
"Optimism, pessimism, f-ck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work."
If they succeed I bet everyone will know that a hundred years from now (particularly those who survive the Earth-destroying comet because of it.)
... also, I can kill you with my brain.
..."launch failure" due to a "timing problem", not anything to do with faulty equipment or expertise level. Sigh. Though I will admit the "longer thrusting" problem is somewhat atypical... Yes, it's oblig adolescent humor. I'm banking that as a chick, I can get away with it.