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A Failure For SpaceX: Falcon 9 Explodes During Ascension
MouseR writes with bad news about this morning's SpaceX launch: About 2:19 into its flight, Falcon 9 exploded along stage 2 and the Dragon capsule, before even the stage 1 separation. Telemetry and videos are inconclusive, without further analysis as to what went wrong. Everything was green lights. This is a catastrophe for SpaceX, which enjoyed, until now, a perfect launch record.
TechCrunch has coverage of the failure, which of course also means that today's planned stage one return attempt has failed before it could start; watch this space for more links.
Update: 06/28 15:06 GMT by T : See also stories
at NBC News,
The Washington Post, and the Associated Press (via ABC News). According to the Washington Post, what was a catastrophe for this morning's launch is only a setback for the ISS and its crew, rather than a disaster:
A NASA slide from an April presentation said that with current food levels, the space station would reach what NASA calls “reserve level” on July 24 and run out by Sept. 5, according to SpaceNews.
[NASA spokeswoman Stephanie] Schierholz said, however, that the supplies would last until the fall, although she could not provide a precise date. Even if something were to go wrong with the SpaceX flight, she said, there are eight more scheduled this year, including several this summer, “so there are plenty of ways to ensure the station continues to be well-supplied.”
Of note: One bit of cargo that was aboard the SpaceX craft was a Microsoft Hololens; hopefully another will make it onto one of the upcoming supply runs instead.
Elon Musk has posted a note on the company's Twitter channel: "Falcon 9 experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown. Will provide more info as soon as we review the data."
Elon Musk has posted a note on the company's Twitter channel: "Falcon 9 experienced a problem shortly before first stage shutdown. Will provide more info as soon as we review the data."
SpaceX has been very forthcoming with their telemetry data and analysis, so hopefully we'll hear what happened soon.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Well, it is a bit like Musk's version of capitalism: nationalize the risks, privatize the rewards. What's the surprise?
Those private space insurance premiums should be skyrocketing....
/. will be a lot more forgiving than if this were a NASA failure.
I'm guessing
Do we want a nation of Ayn Rands merely writing about technology, or do we want to actually implement the technology? If the latter, government spending is essential because the market is way too shortsighted and prefers to take risks on balance sheets, with derivative instruments, rather than push the envelope of technological development.
Just a few months ago, Musk cultists here on Slashdot were virtually cheering when an Orbital Sciences launch failed. Everyone was piling on them for using Russian engines and singing the praises of the infallible SpaceX. I guess payback's a bitch.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
if you're gonna have a launch failure with total loss of all stages, at least this seems to be one of the better outcomes. First stage is very expensive and complex, fixing a major flaw there could take a long time and lots of money. But it looks like the first stage was working fine all the way to the (fiery) end, and it was a ruptured tank on the 2nd stage that caused the failure. Much better than the first stage exploding soon after liftoff.