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Falcon 9 Explodes On Pad (npr.org)
Reader Mysticalfruit writes: NPR is reporting that a Falcon9 carrying the AMOS-6 satellite that was supposed to launch on Sat exploded during it's scheduled static fire. No injuries are reported. They're reporting that this was going to be the first reflown first stage.
The Verge adds:SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, meant to launch a satellite this weekend, exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida this morning. The explosion occurred during the preparation for the static fire test of the rocket's engines, NASA told the Associated Press. The blast reportedly shook buildings "several miles away." The company confirmed to The Verge the loss of the Falcon 9 an hour later: "SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today's static fire, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload. Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries."
The Verge adds:SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, meant to launch a satellite this weekend, exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida this morning. The explosion occurred during the preparation for the static fire test of the rocket's engines, NASA told the Associated Press. The blast reportedly shook buildings "several miles away." The company confirmed to The Verge the loss of the Falcon 9 an hour later: "SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today's static fire, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload. Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries."
It's very likely the used rockets will have micro fractures everywhere that are nearly impossible to find.
awesome work, spaceX! You rock guys. Please send your next rocket to north korea. Thanks in advance.
No shit.
As they say, there's always a silver lining...
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09...
I wouldn't have put anything as valuable as a satellite on the first test of a reused rocket.
As this was an "experimental" used rocket, it's likely highly insured.
But it's unfortunate that this is being reported as a failure of the SpaceX Rocket, while the malfunction was apparently in the pad.
"And what does this button do?"
OOPS!
Correction: This was a brand new rocket. The first customer to fly on a used rocket will be SES.
I couldn't find a video of the actual explosion, but the Mirror has some footage and pics of the aftermath:
SES-10 was suppose to be flown on a reused rocket, in October.
The article is incorrect. First customer for a used rocket was already announced (SES) and this isn't it.
Sorry I got my sources wrong... This was a brand new booster. I'm sure like everything else SpaceX does there was voluminous amounts of data being recorded and they'll quickly understand the issue.
It sucks they lost the vehicle and the payload, but more so that the pad is likely heavily damaged.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I read an interesting rocket story in "Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983" by Severo Ornstein. The author had to jiggle a tracking antenna connected to a computer during a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral. When the rocket launched, the top and middle stages went in opposite directions while the bottom stage sat unlit on the launch pad. When the self destruct signal got sent out, the bottom stage blew up because the explosives were located only in that stage, and the launch pad got destroyed. The other two stages crash landed downrange.
https://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages-Trenches-1955-1983/dp/1403315175/
Well it is rocket science. Reliability doesn't come cheap.
That's why I laugh when private contractors say they can do rocket science better than nation states that have been doing it for over 60 years.
What a shame that SES didn't stay true to its state-owned roots and continue to work with organisations that do it for the sake of science rather than the sake of profit.
Still though, LOL ZUCKERBERG YOU FUCK.
I'm just grateful that nobody was harmed. Fuck private property - hooray for humanity!
Is there independent confirmation of this, because I'm not hearing that?
Privatization - better, cheaper, faster... more bang for the buck.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Remember folks, the free market does everything better than the government. Just ask any Republican.
God damnit, god damnit. That payload was 217 million dollars of American taxpayer money (via Israel). Now it's just daydreams and hydrazine...
They should check video footage carefully if someone was smoking in the vicinity. Often people do not realize how dangerous are cigarette butts thrown on the ground. And it is such a serious dependency that people sometimes cannot wait.
I hope that no one was hurt.
This wasn't a previously flown rocket as misreported here. It was a brand new first stage, and information from SpaceX says that it was a pad issue during fueling, not a problem with the rocket itself.
I just wonder if the payload have to do anything with military gear, they don't like that in space...
Who the hell is going to insure *that*?
You can insure almost anything. Whether the cost of the premium is good value for money is a separate issue. The upper bound on an insurance policy premium is the cost to replace whatever is being insured. Beyond that there is no point in utilizing insurance. (In reality the real bound is substantially lower than that)
But frankly nobody would fly cargo on a spacecraft if it wasn't either insured or if the owners of the cargo could not absorb the loss. Obviously someone thinks the benefits outweigh the cost.
the future and 3D printers and Mars colonies and stuff?
Next up another long investigation probably rest of 2016, expect the next new Falcon 9 in early 2017 and the first Falcon Heavy and reused booster probably not before mid-2017. I'm guessing they took another big step back from being man-rated too. I bet Musk is not a happy camper right now.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Isn't this pretty much WHY they do static fires in the first place?
I'm sure they didn't expect the whole damn thing to explode though. Either way, the data they got from this is incredibly valuable. Whatever happened I'm willing to be won't happen again.
From TFS..
exploded during it's scheduled static fire
and then
SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today's static fire
Still, at least it isn't as bad as the article in The Mirror which said it exploded during lift off, just after it stated that the launch was tomorrow !
This never would have happened if this Falcon 9 was equipped with Tesla's magical new technology, AutoPilot. It's been proven in hundreds of millions of miles of driving already, and has a safety record far exceeding that of non-AutoPilot vehicles.
The only thing that would make this more economical and safe would be if they managed to launch it from a solar-powered HyperLoop prototype.
It's ghosts.
Well apparently not all the private companies who seem to think they can do it better and cheaper than NASA. Yeah, hows that turning out so far?
Don't worry about the astronaut rating. That's never going to happen.
The AMOS-6 satellite belonged to Spacecom, an Israeli telecommunications company. Facebook was to lease a transponder on the satellite, which had many transponders and would have served a lot of other customers.
It's not yet known what exploded first. It could be AMOS itself, part of the Falcon 9, or something on the pad. It will probably take some time to isolate.
Bruce Perens.
The only rational explanation: Elon burned a lot of karma with that SolarCity merger.
Now he's having tough times: both (Tesla and SC) companies are in cash crunch, plus this...
The first stage which is meant to be reflown, F9-023, is waiting for launch later this year. This first stage was brand new, and given the reports that the rocket was still standing with the top bent after the explosion, it doesn't really look like the first stage exploded. The explosion could have been part of the Falcon, the AMOS satellite, or the pad facilities for fueling the rocket. We'll find out which eventually.
Bruce Perens.
According to the Space Nutters, we will be flying to Andromeda with our EmDrive real soon. That is, once we get this new fangled rocket stuff worked out.
The mission was using the same rocket booster that sent the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station earlier this year.
The quote is incorrect. The booster they are planning to reuse won't be flown until later this year at the earliest.
Astronaut rating, unfortunately, has historically been something like "we will only lose one crew in 90". Rockets blow up (although we don't yet know that this started with the Falcon rather than pad infrastructure or AMOS) and astronauts know that better than anyone else. Early reports are that this started at the top of the rocket, not the part that was firing, and it will take some time to determine what actually happened.
Bruce Perens.
TIL "anomaly on the pad" is what "major malfunction" was in 1986.
This is going to make that manned rating a lot harder to get. Blowing up on the pad during a test fire doesn't look good for your QA processes.
Before they can fly anything other than cargo, they are going to need to ramp up that QA process ALOT.. Not to mention their insurance rates are going to skyrocket if they keep up with these "loss of vehicle" events.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I have read statements that the rocket's first stage had been one of those successfully used before and returned to Earth.
And also, that this was the first time they had tested a first stage that was being re-used like that.
Correct me if I'm wrong but those indicate that SpaceX haven't even made sure they can go through with this whole re-use plan by at least sending the same rocket stages up more than once.
Another person pointed out to me that one of the first stages (perhaps this same one) suffered some damage when landing on the target on a previous mission.
So we could even possibly be talking about re-use of damaged parts.
So that would mean this US$200M (not a small number by any means but in the space and satellite industry not a particularly large one, either) satellite payload was attached to a rocket that is launching from a more or less completely experimental stage.
I say this because if they haven't even gone through a proof-of-concept of this whole reusable rocket thing, then it's still experimental.
And not only that, the payload is attached to this rocket during the first ever static test firing of a reused first stage. In other words during a completely experimental moment.
Correct me if I'm wrong but that's kind of fucked up. Especially when you consider that now, the entire satellite industry is rocking back on its heels. A company's entire future is at stake. Investors are fleeing. Space engineers are saying that this is going to push space exploration itself back 1-2 years just in terms of loss of investments and confidence alone.
All of this is foreseeable. You can look at the whole set up and say, "if this rocket explodes and this satellite is destroyed, SpaceX is going to be fucking over the entire space industry. Not just the satellite industry. Not just the Falcon program. The entire space industry."
And to find out that it was somehow green-lit in Elon Musk's world of high pressure corporate decision making and, um, investor confidence, to go ahead and kill two birds with one stone and perform this first-ever completely experimental test while the expensive new "everything's riding on this" payload is sitting on top of the rocket... (?)
I mean, can corporate greed get any fucking sicker?
What if that was a group of human beings in a capsule, dying, because it was the first ever time a successfully re-entered life support system was green lit? And some fucking insulation was burned but passed inspection. And there's an electrical fire and life support fails. And three people die.
There's this thing called ethics in engineering. I had to take a course in it. It's actually considered very important by any truly solid engineer. And it doesn't always take the loss of human life to call a company's ethics into question.
There was a very clear, very blatant sense of calculable corporate risk, and corporate bottom line, and corporate corner cutting in this entire fucking situation.
And where is the blame going to be placed? I love it. Hour one what we're told is an anomaly on the pad. Yeah, okay, an anomaly. Why not? That fits the description of literally everything under the sun if we're all sane human beings and have every reason to believe that SpaceX did not purposefully intend for this to happen. Then yeah, fucking aye, yes "anomaly" is a good word for it.
But the problem is, there's a fucking anomaly in the experiment, too: that this equipment has not been tested to be sure it can perform as expected but it's being treated like it's the holy grail.
That's really not proper. It doesn't seem quite ethical, if you ask me.
Now I'm just waiting for New York Times to blame it on the Russians.
Fucking ridiculous.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if what went wrong had more to do with refueling than the rocket itself. The whole process of transferring fuel into a rocket is extremely dangerous especially with liquid oxygen. Guess we'll know soon...
Astronaut rating, unfortunately, has historically been something like "we will only lose one crew in 90". Rockets blow up (although we don't yet know that this started with the Falcon rather than pad infrastructure or AMOS) and astronauts know that better than anyone else. Early reports are that this started at the top of the rocket, not the part that was firing, and it will take some time to determine what actually happened.
You're thinking of the Shuttle program, which didn't have viable abort procedures for most scenarios. All current and proposed manned launchers would give the crew a really good chance of surviving failures on the ground and during launch. There are many good reasons to put the crew vehicle on top of the stack.
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
Here's a video of the explosion. It's just over 1 minute in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
LOL!
A Facebook Satellite burns with it.
So...a Silver Lining.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
From the guy who brought you "autopilot" mode on the Tesla....
Sure, we can have viable abort procedures for every second of the mission, but they all depend on time to get away and distance from an energetic event. And you might not get that. It is likely they would have protected from the Falcon 9 second stage helium tank issue. It's not yet at all clear there would have been the time to get away from today's event.
Bruce Perens.
Explosion starts at 1:11 here
Musk is clearly not driving his engineer slave labor camp hard enough - 90 hours a week? Fucking peasants can get a full night's sleep on 112/week and half the salary because they won't even need to spend it on anything!
Keeping his companies in the air, so to speak, is a primary concern.
Talking about missions to Mars would seem to be a little premature, no?
To be fair, sending a communications satellite into space is new, untested technology and there are bound to be some mishaps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Maybe Elon didn't use enough Reardon Metal this time, but the next Falcon 9 will be self-driving, definitely.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Where's the conspiracy theorists? Usually this place is full of them.
How long will it take before we don't have to rely on Russia for shooting things into space?
Video Here
The explosion seems to originate between the gantry and upper stage from this view; certainly wasn't the main booster/return base bit (please excuse my terminology)
Hopefully someone will come along and provide internet, but Facebook as a non profit? I don't believe it., Like they wouldn't be selling every scrap of info they could scrape from the satellite.
Congress told us to pencil-whip SpaceX's space rating. They'll tell NASA to just pencilwhip the man rating too. Not a big deal.
Ya don't think it would have been safer to test the rocket engines.... WITHOUT the real payload on it?
WHAT'S INCLUDED IN THIS PACKAGE:
A pile 'o rocks that weighs as much as the payload.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE:
Place on rocket during test firing.
YOU SAVED:
$75 Million!
Thank you. Please inquire about our other fine products.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Why was the payload onboard during a static fire. Why did they spin it as an anomoly on the launch pad. Was the anomoly a tank of fuel...
Orva pad with wings
Don't worry about the astronaut rating. That's never going to happen.
You seem very certain. Maybe you should put some money on it.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Looking at the explosion, a computer controlled 'Tower Jet' might have saved a man-rated capsule and got it out of the area. Although, the shockwave from the first explosion probably would have turned them into human jelly.
Good-bye
SpaceX doesn't use the escape tower in Dragon 2. They use rockets on the side of the vehicle that are also intended for propulsive landing. But yes, the system would probably have been able to get the astronauts out of there.
The explosion is not the only kick in the pants they'd get. Escape approaches 10 Gs. As for the force of the initial explosion, the carbon fiber fairing seemed to survive intact until it was dropped.
Bruce Perens.
I heard a Boeing van left the scene just before the incident.
The adjacent tower was still standing. The rocket wasn't. It was blown to bits. Explosion appeared to have initiated in the upper part of the rocket, just under the payload.
There was a forced update at a critical moment. Boom.
Not launch!
That said, as big as today's fireball was, it was just that, a fireball. It wasn't a detonation (likely until Amos 6 hit the ground and and the Hydrazine went off). The failure mode you actually want in these kinds of situations is to ignite the mixture before it mixes adequately to detonate. As such, the fireball was pretty clearly sub-sonic, and thus wouldn't be that hard to get away from assuming suitable detection and ejection systems.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
There wasn't *any* part that was firing. They were still only fuelling it up; the static fire hadn't started yet. The engines were cold (literally; they chill the engines before start). But yes, the problem started in (or near) the second stage, which wouldn't even have started its engine chill, I think (normally that starts a couple minutes after launch, though maybe they do a MVac chill cycle for static fires too; not sure).
Also, problems like this are the reason why human-rated spacecraft have launch escape systems. Well, human-rated craft other than the Space Shuttle, at least. Did you watch the Dragon 2 Launch Pad Abort video from last year? If anything goes wrong. the capsule blasts all eight of its thrusters to full and takes off like a bat out of hell. It's completely automated, as well; it'll happen faster than a human could ever react.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Yes. It wasn't clear earlier in the day. But the rocket was at T minus 3 minutes with the strongback still up even though it should have been retracted by that time. So nowhere near firing and in a physical configuration that would have prevented firing.
Yes, I watched the pad abort test. I think they undershot a bit, they came down really close to shore. But they would have gotten away in time. One mechanism of the abort system is a wire that runs the length of the stage, and loss of continuity in that wire causes an abort. It would have triggered instantly.
Bruce Perens.