Anomaly Triggers Self-Destruct For SpaceX Falcon 9 Test Flight

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Anomaly Triggers Self-Destruct For SpaceX Falcon 9 Test Flight

Posted by timothy on Saturday August 23, 2014 @12:28AM from the fly-up-go-boom dept.

SpaceMika (867804) writes "A SpaceX test flight at the McGregor test facility ended explosively on Friday afternoon. A test flight of a three-engine Falcon 9 Dev1 reusable rocket ended in a rapid unscheduled disassembly after an unspecified anomaly triggered the Flight Termination System, destroying the rocket. No injuries were reported." Update: 08/23 13:33 GMT by T : Space.com has video.

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So it works then? by EzInKy · 2014-08-23 00:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

Good on them for making the self-destruct such a high priority!

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Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
1. Re:So it works then? by Opportunist · 2014-08-23 00:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Actually, yes, I'd consider that a major display of responsibility. The very last thing I'd want a rocket to do when it goes out of control is to choose its own place to go kaboom. And yes, even for a manned rocket.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
2. Re:So it works then? by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-08-23 00:55 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Had this been a NASA test, or maybe a DOD test, it more likely would have been billed as a blatant failure. This article goes a bit out of its way to remind us this 'its a good thing to learn' this way.
3. Re:So it works then? by DexterIsADog · 2014-08-23 01:03 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I love that reaction - "they fucked up - but they did it so well!"
  
  At least I don't have to ask what you think of Fukushima. :-)
4. Re:So it works then? by RoverDaddy · 2014-08-23 02:43 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Totally depends on who's providing the news coverage. Fox news, yes. CNN, maybe. Space.com, not so much.
  BREAKING NEWS: Media outlets are biased.
  
  --
  RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
5. Re: So it works then? by citizenr · 2014-08-23 04:14 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  little known fact: Googles self-driving cars also have self destruct mechanism
  
  --
  Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
6. Re: So it works then? by Areyoukiddingme · 2014-08-23 05:26 · Score: 2
  
  Is there no end to the Elon Musk worship on this site? Once again, SpaceX does something perfectly normal and ordinary that's been done for decades and the fawning by corporate shills starts immediately.
  What corporate shills? SpaceX is not publicly traded. They're privately held and self-funding from their own profit. What is said about them on random Internet discussion forums has absolutely no affect on their continuing success or failure. They will have to have a satisfactory explanation for the contracts people who have put down heaps of money to buy launches, but none of those conversations will involve random Internet discussion forums.
  We're spectators, having a rather short and noncontroversial discussion about a small explosion in the sky. What are you, that you feel obliged to shit on the subject? A corporate shill perhaps? Employed by a SpaceX competitor?
  Probably not. You're just a random Internet misanthrope.
Re:Fanboys, by durrr · 2014-08-23 00:38 · Score: 3, Funny

Because unlike your life they're doing something interesting.
SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid by lesincompetent · 2014-08-23 00:45 · Score: 5, Funny

"rapid unscheduled disassembly"
Talk about an understatement!
George Carlin would have gone mad about that nugget.
1. Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid by Doctor+Device · 2014-08-23 00:59 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  I would have preferred "Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure", myself.
  
  --
  -It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
2. Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid by tomhath · 2014-08-23 01:19 · Score: 2
  
  Similar to an airline referring to the "involuntary conversion of an asset" when they convert an aircraft into an insurance claim.
Re:So this is how the world ends. by Ol+Olsoc · 2014-08-23 00:49 · Score: 2

Not with a whimper, but a bang.
Nice to see that "rah rah free market!" is just as meaningless as "for mother Russia!" - every advance is just fallible humans fumbling in the almost-dark, tripping over, picking themsleves up and carrying on. Over and over.
These "rapid unscheduled disassembly" events do not care about free market, or socialized ideology. Kind of has something to do with the massive amount of energy they are trying to barely contain.
Although I think I know where you are going with this - if so, I agree. There are people out there that do seem to think that somehow, privately built rockets are beyond failure, as if the rocket somehow knows what ideology built it.
We should be having private industry building and launching space vehicles - because that is where we are now. But the ideology angle is just as dumb as the old idea that lot's of Olympics medals showed how great the country was who's athletes got them.

--
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Exactly! by EzInKy · 2014-08-23 00:54 · Score: 4, Insightful

This really moves SpaceX up in my estimation as well. Until now, I pictured private space flight as focusing only on making profits, not sacrificing dollars in order to protect people around them. Maybe the privatization of space flight has a future after all!

--
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
1. Re:Exactly! by rasmusbr · 2014-08-23 01:46 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  This really moves SpaceX up in my estimation as well. Until now, I pictured private space flight as focusing only on making profits, not sacrificing dollars in order to protect people around them. Maybe the privatization of space flight has a future after all!
  Uhhh, yeah, let me know how well the PR monkey handles explaining to the general public that your loved ones aboard their dream vacation to space were blown up on purpose as a safety measure.
  Good luck with that shit.
  Manned capsules must have an emergency escape system.
  Basically what would happen is explosive bolts would detach the capsule from the rocket and the capsule would fly away under its own power until it's far enough away from the rocket. Then the rocket would self destruct and the capsule would come down to a safe-ish landing either under parachutes or under its own power.
  This is nothing new, NASA had this in the 1960's, the Russians evidently had it in the 1980's. Also the Kerbals, apparently.
2. Re:Exactly! by v1 · 2014-08-23 01:49 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Look at the top of any manned rocket. see that "mini rocket" looking thing strapped to the top? that's an "escape tower". It IS a mini rocket. if there's a catastrophic faulure on a rocket massive enough to go to the moon, you REALLY don't want it hitting dirt before it explodes. The cabin module separates from the top with explosive bolts, and the escape tower pulls them a distance away from the main rocket and after awhile a parachute goes off.
  Probaby still a heck of a close call though, being so close to the rocket when it blows up. But you still have a chance.
  
  --
  I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
3. Re:Exactly! by durrr · 2014-08-23 02:14 · Score: 2
  
  Why would you need luck to survive the escape vehicle separation? It's obviously designed to accelerate at sublethal G forces.
  Regarding the challenger disaster: it had no escape possibilities AND the crew telemetry from the challenger showed them as alive until the remnant they were seated in hit the sea.
4. Re:Exactly! by AikonMGB · 2014-08-23 02:34 · Score: 2
  
  Just pointing out that SpaceX's manned Dragon capsule won't have an escape tower; the launch escape system is a set of eight SuperDraco thrusters, which will also be used for soft ground landing after normal flights.
5. Re:Exactly! by DMUTPeregrine · 2014-08-23 02:35 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Specifically, the space shuttle didn't have a launch escape system. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Vostok, Shenzhou and Soyuz all do/did, though Vostok and Gemini used ejection seats for the purpose instead of taking the whole capsule. The shuttle test flights had ejection seats, but those were removed when normal operations started. After Challenger a method to escape the shuttle was added: get into a controlled glide, get to the rear hatch, jump out, and parachute to safety...
  
  --
  Not a sentence!
6. Re:Exactly! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-23 02:37 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Nice pun asshole. Challenger had no ejection system. NASA considered in infeasible to provide ejection capability for 7 people. The commander and pilot could have had an ejection seat system, but the idea of having two crew members escape while the other 5 are left to die was (rightly) unpalatable.
7. Re:Exactly! by JamesPLynch · 2014-08-23 12:02 · Score: 2
  
  The Russian Soyuz T-10A mission to the Salyut space station in September 1983 did have a launch pad explosion and the tractor escape system (emergency pull-away rockets on a tower above the Soyuz spacecraft) ignited 2 seconds before the explosion and pulled the spacecraft 2000 meters above the explosion and permitted a safe landing 4 kilometers away. Cosmonauts Titov and Strekalov were unhurt and required no medical attention (Wikipedia). So far, this type of thing has never been used while the rocket's first stage is actually flying. Boeing is offering a similar tractor rocket escape system on their commercial offering while SpaceX is planning to use the on board Super-Drako engines for this purpose. Good to know that our astronauts will have these systems available!
Re:Fanboys, by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-23 01:05 · Score: 4, Funny

I'm boning your mom, is that interesting enough for you?
It is for me, she's ashes in an urn over my fireplace.

Would you like a damp washcloth?
Re:what does auto-termination mean? by robbak · 2014-08-23 01:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

That's pretty much it. The on-board computers detected that the rockets attitude or location was out of limits, so it triggered some explosive detcord fixed against the fuel and lox tanks, tearing them open, so that the rocket safely disintegrates.
I notice from the video that the destruction is done in a way that doesn't mix the LOX and fuel together - you can see the Cold Lox falling away and the ignited cloud of burning RP1 floating higher. Really nice bit of design I hadn't thought of.

--
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
Re:what does auto-termination mean? by HoppQ · 2014-08-23 02:48 · Score: 2

the rockets attitude or location was out of limits
Damn those rockets with out of limits attitude, wearing sunglasses at night, paying no respect to public property, traffic laws or law enforcement in general, just because they're on a mission from NASA!
No, wait...

--
My sig will be released in 2015 third quarter. Rating pending.
Re:Government Lawsuit? by cjameshuff · 2014-08-23 06:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

This was a modified Falcon 9 first stage with only 3 engines and no second stage, put together as a testbed for developing the landing capabilities. It launches off support blocks on a concrete foundation instead of a full launch pad, does various maneuvers, and lands on bare concrete right next to the launch site.
It wasn't an orbital launch of a standard vehicle, it was a test flight with heavily modified experimental hardware and software operating under rather unusual conditions, so it really shouldn't impact other things like their attempts to compete for military launches...the actual Falcon 9 launches have actually all gone without losing a single vehicle, though there have been some minor failures and one somewhat exciting unplanned demonstration of the engine-out capability. Attempting to hold tests to the same standards as launches would be quite foolish, deterring companies from performing those tests...definitely not the desired outcome.
Re:Why, I don't even OWN a TV. by khallow · 2014-08-23 13:59 · Score: 2

Eeeeexcept that Musk himself tweeted about it as soon as word had spread on internet discussion forums that SpaceX had a loss-of-vehicle.
Why that's definitive proof of something or another!