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A Failure For SpaceX: Falcon 9 Explodes During Ascension

Posted by timothy on from the harsh-news dept.

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."

12 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. Looks like the second stage ruptured by rasmusbr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here's a gif of the failure: http://imgur.com/SYwUIbI

    Looks like:
    1. Second stage comes apart in a cloud of oxygen and fuel.
    2. Dragon spacecraft falls off / gets overtaken by first stage.
    3. First stage is destroyed.

    1. Re:Looks like the second stage ruptured by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, the first stage looks like it keep on trucking as the second stage ruptured.

    2. Re:Looks like the second stage ruptured by trout007 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Is it just me or does it look possible Dragon survived? It would be interesting if it came down under chutes.

      --
      I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    3. Re:Looks like the second stage ruptured by whodat54321 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It did. Figure the damage became catastrophic at max q, typical for first stage and interstage failures. Long ago, during the first space age, engineers trying to lighten up the second and subsequent stages, either minimized or entirely uninstalled vibration dampening or ruggedizing in the fuel and/or turbo pump systems, with many failures the end result. It's not really known, (for proprietary reasons) if the Space X vehicle, in an effort to either slash costs or try new performance ideas, made this classic boob or not until some of the vehicle is recovered. Seems everything old is new again on /. today.

  2. Missed it! But, here's the video... by weilawei · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I slept in and missed the launch, but here's a video of the CRS-7 launch and subsequent explosion.

    1. Re:Missed it! But, here's the video... by rasmusbr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If you pause the video at 3:16 you can see a tiny white dot on the second stage. I don't think that dot is suppose to be there (unless it's the sun reflecting off something shiny or something). Fuel / oxygen tank leak?

    2. Re:Missed it! But, here's the video... by weilawei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're right, it looks like something venting out the side (you can see a little cloud there). Then that area comes apart. The flames from the engines appear to flare up, suggesting oxygen? Then, it starts burning hotter in the area you mentioned, looking like maybe it's burning it's way down into the lower stage. That fire gives out, but it's immediately followed by RUD.

  3. Re: Well, well, well. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And this you write, after seeing what SpaceX has achieved as a private company, and what the publicly funded programmes has (not) achieved in the meantime?

  4. Re:Don't rule out sabotage by mi · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Saying that this launch failure has certainly

    Not saying it is a certainty — but rather a possibility, which should not be ruled out.

    Russia today is proudly claiming legacy of the country and organization, which once sent agents to kill John Wayne — for trying to drive Communists out of Hollywood. Compared to that, crippling an enemy's space program is a perfectly normal and even noble thing to do.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  5. Re:It's called Rocket Science for a reason ... by Martin+Blank · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's initial incident analysis that doesn't need quarterbacking from people who don't have access to internal data. With SpaceX, so many people are anti-Elon that within minutes, people were declaring the company a failure and wondering how long it would take for the entire company to collapse. Orbital Sciences has the advantage that far fewer people even know who they are and they don't have legions of people hoping for them to fail, so being more open up front doesn't carry as much of a downside.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  6. Re:List of lost Cargo by oobayly · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was thinking on starting off a conspiracy theory about a shady group sabotaging the ISS resupply missions. Alas I don't really have the imagination to come up with a suitably ridiculous hypothesis.

    According to this list they're going backwards:
    * The first 51 missions were successful - Progress M
    * The following 25 missions succeeded - Cygnus
    * The next 4 missions were successful, followed by two successive failures (Progress M & Falcon 9)

    On a serious note - the NASA press conference mentioned that the Progress M 3rd stage has been reverted to an older configuration, so the failures we're seeing are possibly due to multiple launch systems being continuously developed.

  7. Re:When can we end the corporate experiment? by thrich81 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "NASA" hasn't built a launch vehicle since the Saturn 1 in the early '60s. Everything since then has been built by private contractors, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, North American, etc. And only the first eight Saturn I's were built by government personnel (von Braun's group in Hunstville). The last two were built by Chrysler -- it was a big deal to pass the assembly to them (I think it may have been only the first stage at that time). As far as schedules are concerned there is no schedule pressure now for anyone like there was for NASA with Apollo in the '60s.