Slashdot Mirror
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."
awesome work, spaceX! You rock guys. Please send your next rocket to north korea. Thanks in advance.
As they say, there's always a silver lining...
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09...
I couldn't find a video of the actual explosion, but the Mirror has some footage and pics of the aftermath:
It's very likely the used rockets will have micro fractures everywhere that are nearly impossible to find.
This was not the reused booster stage. That was scheduled to launch later this year.
The article is incorrect. First customer for a used rocket was already announced (SES) and this isn't it.
This wasn't a used rocket. The first reuse will be for the SES-10 launch in a couple of months... assuming this doesn't push back the timeline.
This rocket was brand new it was the first that would have been SCHEDULED TO REUSE later after this launch.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
The satellite may have cost $200 million but it also belonged to FaceBook. Nothing of value was lost.
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.
But it's unfortunate that this is being reported as a failure of the SpaceX Rocket, while the malfunction was apparently in the pad.
You're kidding, right? When SpaceX reported "an anomaly on the pad", they just meant the rocket had an issue leading to its explosion while it was standing on the pad waiting to fire.
Of course Musk may choose to describe this as a "rapid unscheduled prelaunch disassembly" rather than an explosion - we'll have to see.
#DeleteChrome
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/
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. . . .
"It happens sometimes. Pads just explode. Natural causes."
Its not a used rocket, its a brand new rocket - the first re-use isn't scheduled until later in the year.
And "on the pad" is terminology meaning thats where the failure occurred - not that it was specifically a failure of the pad or the pad equipment (although that can be the case), just that thats where it happened. As opposed to "in flight" etc.
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.
Yeah, because the spacecraft made by nation states NEVER blow up!
Enigma
Well it is rocket science.
It's not brain surgery.
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.
Sounds like quite a point to coalesce into a good old belly laugh over. Presumably they'll get there, NASA certainly seems to want them to.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
They should be reusable though, right? ;-)
This rocket was brand new it was the first that would have been SCHEDULED TO REUSE later after this launch.
So, it's looking good then?
As this was an "experimental" used rocket, it's likely highly insured.
Who the hell is going to insure *that*?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
But it's unfortunate that this is being reported as a failure of the SpaceX Rocket, while the malfunction was apparently in the pad.
Yer, just like the "rapid unscheduled pre-launch disassembly". Their language is increasingly not going to help them.
This rocket was brand new it was the first that would have been SCHEDULED TO REUSE later after this launch.
Wrong.
--quote-- For SpaceX, the private space company owned by Elon Musk, it was the "first launch of [a] flight-proven first stage," the company says. The mission was using the same rocket booster that sent the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station earlier this year. --end quote--
Sorry, but that quote is wrong. The first reused booster is (was?) scheduled to launch SES-10 later this year.
Some re-assembly required.
It blew during or shortly after a static firing - that is, a test run of the engine with the rocket restrained. That's a *very* unusual procedure in the modern world, but they used to do it all the time. The reason they don't do it any more is that it tends to reduce overall reliability, and the rocket was designed to work in flight, not necessarily with the back-pressure, or acoustic and thermal reflection from the pad/blast deflector/ground.
In this case, I expect, that SpaceX brobdingagian hubris figured that they could get away with it, and it was "designed" for reuse, so it will encounter those effects anyway, and in any case, they have lots of fast computers so they know better than those dinosaur idiots back in the late 50's.early 60's.
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.
Sorry, but that quote is wrong. The first reused booster is (was?) scheduled to launch SES-10 later this year.
Correct.
You can insure anything. It just becomes impractical when the premium approaches or exceeds the replacement cost.
Assumes that NASA rockets are built by NASA.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
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.
But it's unfortunate that this is being reported as a failure of the SpaceX Rocket, while the malfunction was apparently in the pad.
You're kidding, right? When SpaceX reported "an anomaly on the pad", they just meant the rocket had an issue leading to its explosion while it was standing on the pad waiting to fire.
The anomaly probably was the explosion.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
There was no one at all 'in the vicinity'. These people aren't idiots. The system was a T-3, ready to start the firing sequence. Humans had been kicked out long ago. Security has made several sweeps of the area. People looked at cameras. Unless some pelicans have taken up cigarettes, the explosion wasn't due to a nic-fit.
There is a reason why you launch giant tubes full of high powered explosives in the middle of deserts or swamps.
Quasi edit - On reflection, it could have been due to a drone. The seem to be the current boogie man.
Or Aliens.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
you're funny, imagining a cigarette butt would be dangerous in place designed to take firing rocket engine
It blew during or shortly after a static firing - that is, a test run of the engine with the rocket restrained. That's a *very* unusual procedure in the modern world, but they used to do it all the time. The reason they don't do it any more is that it tends to reduce overall reliability, and the rocket was designed to work in flight, not necessarily with the back-pressure, or acoustic and thermal reflection from the pad/blast deflector/ground.
Yer, I don't get that, nor with the payload attached. If it's going to fail then it'll fail in flight anyway. I don't know what it would prove, and then a bit Schrodinger the test firing might well cause issues with the actual flight itself. That's the problem we have with rockets in general, and I don't see them as being a viable vehicle to reuse. We need something better.
In this case, I expect, that SpaceX brobdingagian hubris figured that they could get away with it, and it was "designed" for reuse, so it will encounter those effects anyway, and in any case, they have lots of fast computers so they know better than those dinosaur idiots back in the late 50's.early 60's.
Heh. People have been launching crap into space for decades. It amuses me when people think SpaceX are doing something new or incredibly groundbreaking, no doubt fuelled by the Musk flavoured anti-freeze.
Don't worry about the astronaut rating. That's never going to happen.
There's not enough detail to say that. The issue may have not involved the rocket directly, but occurred in the pad's infrastructure, possibly related to fueling operations in preparation for the firing test. You didn't provide the full quote of SpaceX's statement:
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Yep, happened four times with the Soyuz in the past 40 years.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
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.
o.0
Even if the failure was in the pad equipment, said equipment is also SpaceX's and part of the overall Falcon 9 system.
Armchair engineers commonly think of the rocket as a stand-alone thing, but it's not really - its just the most visible part of a larger system.
The anomaly probably was the explosion.
Indeed. Having listened to a few SpaceX launches, things are either nominal or they have an anomaly. Which can be everything from a gauge being slightly off to an explos^H^H^H^H^H unscheduled rapid disassembly. Understatement seems to be the a rocket science in-joke, "Houston, we have a problem" is their version of "OMG half the ship blew up, we're so screwed".
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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.
SpaceX has been doing static fire tests before every launch for years. This is the first time one blew up. Better for it to blow up during testing than on actual launch, at any rate, if you're planning to eventually launch humans with it.
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Wernher von Braun went through all this. I saw a documentary on German television where an ex-colleague said that after a V2 crash on the launchpad, von Braun quipped, "Diese Scheise ist nicht einfach!" In English, "This shit is not easy!"
I think that sizes it up for me.
But hats off to Falcon engineers! And good luck at you next attempt! Don't let the bastards grind you down!
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
"An anomaly on the pad" doesn't mean it had anything to do with the pad. It literally could mean anything, including that the rocket exploded - which is on the pad.
Not only have the insurance companies already signed off on the re-used rocket, they've insured it at a similar price to first-use rockets:
"There also was “no material change” in the insurance rate compared to using a new Falcon 9 rocket, indicating insurers’ confidence in the launch vehicle, Halliwell said."
http://www.latimes.com/busines...
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There are two crucial differences betweeen 1960's rockets and the Falcon 9:
1. The Falcon has thousands of on-board sensors and a high-bandwidth digital data stream of their data during the entire flight. So, it is possible to see a lot more go wrong while you can still do something about it. Thus, testing the rocket at full fire before launch makes sense. The Space Shuttle didn't have this sort of sensor coverage.
2. The Falcon engines can be fired many times, and some of them can re-light in flight. 1960's rockets could not do that.
Bruce Perens.
The reason they say the "pad" is that there are three main things that could have failed and they don't know which. The AMOS satellite, the Falcon 9, and the pad infrastructure which fuels the Falcon 9.
Bruce Perens.
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.
The quote is definitely wrong. The SES mission was to be the first to use a re-used first stage, and it was just announced a few days ago and is months from launch. The AMOS mission was on the pad.
Bruce Perens.
no I stick with reality, not imagining cigarette buts where there were none. causes of fires in buildings and industrial facilities and rocket launch pads are investigated and determined in the real world
you have butts on the brain
TIL "anomaly on the pad" is what "major malfunction" was in 1986.
Actually, a cigarette in an area with liquid oxygen would be quite dangerous. All of the things in the immediate area have to be designed to be non-sparking. Thus we have expensive non-sparking flashlights, tools specially made of non-sparking metals, non-sparking walkie talkies, etcetera ad infinitum. So, the next time someone wonders why NASA buys $10,000 tool boxes, you'll know why: the tools are specially short-run machined to be non-sparking.
Bruce Perens.
The Falcon has thousands of on-board sensors and a high-bandwidth digital data stream of their data during the entire flight. So, it is possible to see a lot more go wrong while you can still do something about it.
Obviously worked very well ;-).
They're still rockets I'm afraid (large, incredibly explosive and unstable objects), and when something does go wrong, even if you can see something on the telemetry it's generally already too late to do something about it. You can certainly simulate a lot more then you could decades ago, and test firing like this is still a little unusual.
The Falcon engines can be fired many times...
I think this one has fired for the last time.
....and some of them can re-light in flight. 1960's rockets could not do that.
SpaceX didn't invent the concept of refiring a rocket I'm afraid.
Although a cigarette butt would be really dangerous there, all of the co-workers you have at NASA would know that, and freak out if you lit up anywhere near that area. Human bodies burn quite readily in the presence of liquid oxygen.
Bruce Perens.
SpaceX states that it blew up in preparation for the static fire test.
Looks like an inherent problem with the rocket or the procedures leading up to the static test, which I assume are basically the same as those leading up to launch.
I'm afraid that this will set SpaceX back by months while they figure out what's wrong with their systems and procedures. Well, unexpected setbacks are to be expected in the space industry.
https://tech.slashdot.org/comm...
You don't know what the word "may" means, do you?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The Falcon engines can be fired many times...
I think this one has fired for the last time.
Dude, I just about spit coffee all over my laptop - that was the first Slashdot comment in quite a while to make me laugh out loud! Thanks for that.
#DeleteChrome
The question is, why? If you have confidence in your engineering and QA it's something you wouldn't want to do with a rocket - certainly of the duration SpaceX seem to fire beyond a few seconds of other tests. Rockets are just not cars or airliners unfortunately and don't have anything like the same life. Wrap them in cotton wool.
Oh, you and your space nutters. Classic 110010001000.
If you add up all of the Progress and Molinya missions, which use the Soyuz boosters, Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11, you get more than 4. And there are no shortage of other Russian rockets that blew up.
Bruce Perens.
But its OK. We have been working on rocket technology to LEO only for the last 80 years or so. I'm sure we will be building generational ships powered by EmDrives by the end of the year. Get your suit on, we are headed to the STARS!
All of this is engineering skating on the bleeding edge of the physically possible. Brain surgery kills one person at a time and is physically simple in comparison.
Bruce Perens.
The Space Shuttle didn't have this sort of sensor coverage.
You sure about this? I could swear I read a document about the diagnostic systems for the STS once and I don't see how it could have worked without a lot of automated diagnostics that implied that the sensor coverage was very extensive.
Ezekiel 23:20
It blew during or shortly after a static firing...
Eyewitnesses said the explosion happened at T-3 minutes. If that is true, the explosion would have occurred during the fuel load and not the firing of the engines. I'm sure we'll learn more as the day goes on. I'm also sure the SpaceX engineers have very valid reasons for conducting a test firing. They are well-trained professionals, and not teenagers given to thinking like "get away with it" and the previous generation is full of "dinosaur idiots". If nothing else, this will provide a vector for making pre-launch procedures safer. Better to figure it out with a $200M satellite on board than human lives.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
It all depends how you read the quote. Just like exam questions. I read it the same way you did, now see they probably meant this was the 'exact same configuration', as opposed to 'previously flown'. Choice of words can be a huge thing in conveying a clear message. Of course, they may have chosen the wording to confuse?
BTW I got my clarification that it wasn't a previously flown stage from: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-...
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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
To Mars? I'd go. To America on a leaking creaking raft of wood and blowing canvas? Lots of folks went.
Bruce Perens.
SES-10 was suppose to be flown on a reused rocket, in October.
Yup and you'll probably find it is going to be pre-flight tested extensively, before they put any satellite on it. In many ways they'll know more about potential failures of a reused rocket, then a brand new one?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
You just stay right here where you are comfortable. Think of it as evolution in action.
Bruce Perens.
You aren't going anywhere, Bruce. This is what real hard engineering work looks like. It is full of smart people, who still occasionally fail. Wishing hard that you will go to Mars doesn't make it happen. This isn't computer software, which is easily correctible. This is the reality.
Geez. Do you think that anyone here doesn't know that?
Bruce Perens.
The shuttle had a large number of sensors for its time. If you look back at how they diagnosed the two space shuttle disasters vs. how they diagnosed the Falcon 9 second stage failure, there's a big difference in the data they had available.
Bruce Perens.
If launching a rocket with a satellite into LEO is "bleeding edge of the physically impossible" then how difficult is it to go to Mars? We have been launching rockets for 80 years. Is going to Mars easier?
Besides the static fires on the pad, every SpaceX rocket is fired for full mission duration at their test site in McGregor, Texas. The whole point is that their life should be more like airplanes than the rockets you're thinking of.
Bruce Perens.
Sorry, reality can be harsh sometime. Welcome to Earth!
I am old enough to have heard all of the same talk about people going to the moon. People will go, it's only a matter of time. The naysayers aren't relevant, they are evolution's castoffs.
Bruce Perens.
Why? How are they different from any other reusable aerospace structure?
you too are being silly
I can assure you that the vicinity of a rocket about to be fired is very spark prone
were a person smoking while attaching and working with the LOX that would be another matter
however that is not a consideration at the time this incident happened
No you aren't that old. You have fallen into the same trap that most tech people have: you assume progress is inevitable. Since we went to the Moon, it must be possible to go to Mars, and thus it must be possible to go to Andromeda. Because the computer industry has seen amazing growth, you think that applies to everything else. But real engineering is not like software. Despite the claims marketing charlatans at SpaceX make, you won't be going to Mars in in 2024. You won't be going in 2025, or 2225. Welcome to Earth. Sorry you don't like it here, but get used to it.
The one in Brazil killed 21 people.
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...
Pfft.
Tell that to SpaceX so maybe they won't corner cut themselves into oblivion before they get a person to the ISS.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Should be plenty of data about the explosion ...
love is just extroverted narcissism
Quote not present in the linked articles.
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!
That's actually easy to answer. The very largest problem that we have to cope with is getting out of Earth's gravity well. Consider the size of the Saturn V vs. the size of the Lunar Module ascent stage. Both lifted a crew and some hardware to orbit on the same mission, but their sizes were radically different, for the most part because of the difference in gravity of the two bodies. So, the biggest challenge we face is lifting things. We have, as a species, mastered lifting things with the economic abandon of a war, and are working on lifting things more economically.
Once in orbit, you have the problems of keeping a crew alive and transporting them, but these are smaller in magnitude than just getting them into Earth orbit in the first place. Getting down to Mars is a challenge because of the need to use supersonic retropropulsion rather than atmospheric braking, but SpaceX has done well in making that work with first stage recovery.
Bruce Perens.
Correct me if I'm wrong but that's kind of fucked up.
Well, you're wrong. So is the summary, so it's not your fault. This rocket was NOT one of the ones that have already been flown. See the submitter's comment. SpaceX has just announced that they've found a partner (SES) to launch a payload (SES-10) on a used booster, whereas this payload was AMOS-6.
And not only that, the payload is attached to this rocket during the first ever static test firing of a reused first stage.
Sorry, also wrong here too. See here for video of their first test-fire (full duration too). That one went significantly better.
Here's a video of the explosion. It's just over 1 minute in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You think 10% is certain death? Throughout history people have taken much larger risks than that.
The Europeans who traveled to America were provided a ride, at first, because various European nations wished to have military power, additional trade, etc. The people had their own reasons for going and if they didn't immediately ignore the purposes of their erstwhile hosts, certainly it happened later. The nations didn't quite get what they expected.
Bruce Perens.
Judging from how much many people are seemingly willing to buy Musk's ridiculous bluster, yes.
When you need to get your head down and prove you can actually do something you say you're going to do, and prove you can do it reliably without a large number of vehicles and their cargo being lost being lost, I think talking about Mars is getting a little ahead of yourself. I would hazard a guess that announcement will get delayed beyond 2018 somehow.
The trouble for poor Elon is it's "Show me the money" time, and that doesn't mean money in terms of actual profitability, although that would be nice. It means can you actually achieve what you say you are going to without, and before, jumping off on to another Moon shot? Although we're a little beyond the Moon now. There's only so many times you can completely ignore the fact that you haven't achieved what you should and then start talking about grand visions of the future before investors, the public and even the media start getting weary.
Oh. Well I'm glad I'm wrong. Because otherwise it looked pretty bad for SpaceX. They would look completely cavalier. I mean, I've read the history of rocketry. I find the formation of JPL and work done by John Parsons on the first JATO particularly interesting, even wrote a final on it. I know that the whole entire field of rocketry, so far from perfection and probably remaining that way for many decades into the future, is more or less insanely cavalier. But we've come to expect some sensibility and aeronautics has become a highly ethical field.
Journalism on the other hand.
I had read the original, incorrect version and had closed it while writing this. Then I bother to read other comments here, leading me back to twitter to see what's being said about re-use, leading me back to the article which is *totally different*.
Isn't it part of journalistic ethics to issue clear retractions explaining the error that was made and offering corrected information? Instead NPR just deletes the offending reporting and goes on like nothing's wrong, completely confusing the fuck out of everybody with their inept approach to journalism.
That's fine. National Public Radio is only good at one thing and that's geopolitical propaganda. They really should just stay stupid and shut up until the CIA or Biden needs them to join New York Times in reporting the billionth Russian troop being staged on the border of Ukraine.
I should have known that if NPR wasn't reporting "the Russians just blew up SpaceX and Facebook", then they were probably reporting from a position deeply embedded up their own asshole.
My apologies for OP being completely irrelevant. After all, this is corporate America and space mining is the only non-murderous future the resource goblins are riding on at the moment. If no clearly actionable mistake was made during this launch then there's absolutely no need to be cautious at all. Quick, let's now get the re-used rocket, crowdfund $uckerberg's public to build another scheme to overutilize the marginalized, and do exactly what I described in my post because bottom line. There would be nothing wrong with doing so because everybody has already been through the scare of believing that's exactly what happened, so they'll all be totally prepared in case it actually does.
Fuckin aye!
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
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.
In the following article the fire expert in Dubai says: "Mahmoud El-Shahat, a fire expert at the department told this website that most of the fires that break out start due to cigarette butts...":
http://www.emirates247.com/new...
I did not write that it caused fire, but advised to verify security camera footage, as cigarette butts are the main reason of fires in buildings in accordance with the fire experts living in the real world.
Here are some more examples:
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/20...
http://uk.businessinsider.com/...
The whole point is that their life should be more like airplanes than the rockets you're thinking of.
Indeed, that they should be more like aeroplanes to be properly reusable, reduce maintenance and give the turnaround and profitability required to fulfil all those grand visions is a point I've made elsewhere. However, rockets are *not* aeroplanes as should now be readily apparent for anyone who didn't know before. Anyone who thinks they are or ever will be is just not thinking this through properly.
Rather than dredge up why here I'll leave it to someone else far more qualified, probably of anyone, to talk about it. Sound quality isn't great though sadly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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.
And next to no customers, because the insurance is too steep and you lose $200m every now and then.
Explosion starts at 1:11 here
Yes. Sadly it doesn't alter anything in what you wrote. Put simply it means absolutely nothing.
Of course it wasn't a consideration. Humans burn in liquid oxygen, and if you happened to light up near that stuff, everyone around you would take action.
Bruce Perens.
Kind of avoiding the elephant in the room I'm afraid.
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!
the phrase is "intrinsically safe"
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Keeping his companies in the air, so to speak, is a primary concern.
That's what people though fifty years ago when Apollo was happening. The film 2001 was totally feasible and just around the corner...... You need to look into why the Apollo missions have never been attempted again in fifty years. We ain't getting stuff into space cheaply, reliably and safely with great big massive rockets.
Talking about missions to Mars would seem to be a little premature, no?
You would have to be betting on the death of the species or the collapse of society to believe that one. As for me, I was born before the US put anything in space, and I have had my own work go into orbit and will have another project in orbit soon. So, this is all a lot more real to me than people who are at a greater distance from space research.
Bruce Perens.
It blew during or shortly after a static firing - that is, a test run of the engine with the rocket restrained. That's a *very* unusual procedure in the modern world, but they used to do it all the time. The reason they don't do it any more is that it tends to reduce overall reliability, and the rocket was designed to work in flight, not necessarily with the back-pressure, or acoustic and thermal reflection from the pad/blast deflector/ground.
In this case, I expect, that SpaceX brobdingagian hubris figured that they could get away with it, and it was "designed" for reuse, so it will encounter those effects anyway, and in any case, they have lots of fast computers so they know better than those dinosaur idiots back in the late 50's.early 60's.
You know, you could just watch the video and see that the explosion originated in the upper section of the second stage, which isn't firing during a test fire, or particularly affected by a test fire, and that in fact the first stage wasn't firing at the time.
SpaceX performs static firing because, statistically, the primary cause of historical launch failures has been engine-out during flight. That's also why Falcon 9 has 9 engines. The purpose is to improve reliability and reduce hazard to bystanders during a launch. It has succeeded this time. The explosion and fire happened on the pad, instead of downrange. That's precisely what is supposed to happen.
Cheaper than who? You might want to look up who makes the Delta and Atlas families of rockets (the US's workhorses before SpaceX showed up, and currently their main domestic competition)
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
yes, there's also vapour escaping from around that point for 10-20 seconds prior to the explosion - were they pressure testing the upper stage tanks? (unlikely with live fuel) or loaded the wrong tanks by mistake?
I would just love to have another way to do it than with rockets, but that's what we have right now. As for Apollo, no we are not leaving the entire thing to governments again.
Bruce Perens.
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>
Actually, I am not a big fan of the Mars mission for similar reasons. I think SpaceX needs to work on cadence first, and of course we're going to face mission failures on the way.
And I hate hyperloop. It's B.S., meant cynically to divert attention from real trains, kill it.
And the compusolipsism was just silly.
But everybody knew there would be mission failures, this is unfortunate but not sure it changes much. Especially after watching the video and seeing where the problem started. And the Mars thing will probably happen, because NASA wants to go. Maybe not during the 2018 conjunction, though.
Bruce Perens.
If it didn't have micro-fractures before, it sure does now... and they're definitely going to be hard to find.
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.
Brobdingnagian
adjective Brobdingnagian \bräb-di-na-g-n, -dig-na-\
: marked by tremendous size
Now that's a ten-dollar word. I learned something new today.
Meanwhile, one of the stages that landed successfully has seen 5 full-duration test firings since the landing. Maybe they actually designed the rocket for those loads instead of just winging it.
that should be "rapid unscheduled autonomous prelaunch disassembly", just to be clear.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Right. The guys who built the Atlas did it for years, too, with *far* more missiles. Then they stopped because there's not much upside. AND, importantly, they usually didn't do it with the *payload* at risk in an accident. They didn't say, "hey, John Glenn, climb up in the capsule while we do a test to see if it will blow up". In this case, that's exactly what happened, they did the static test with the payload on board and at risk from any problem.
Challenger?
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
If you watch the video of the explosion, you would see the explosion happened very high where you would expect the interface between the second stage and the payload would be, so it's not clear that it was the Falcon9 that blew up or the payload. Those Geosync satellites carry considerable fuel for both station-keeping and for vacating there position upon retirement. It's plausible that either had the problem, or even both.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It blew during or shortly after a static firing
The explosion actually occurred during tanking. The point of a static fire test is less the actual testing of the engines, but as an all-up dress rehearsal prior to launch. It's intended to find any snags in fuelling procedures/equipment, communications equipment, procedures, and so forth. Unfortunately, this time, the snag was catastrophic. Additionally, the actual ignition with the rocket restrained is very brief. It only burns for a couple of seconds before being shut down, basically similar to a pad abort.
Delta IV Heavy does a WDR (Wet Dress Rehearsal) where they do the full countdown, including loading all the propellants (hence "wet"). The only thing they don't do is actually ignite the engines. As I recall, a similar test was done with the Space Shuttle, including igniting the SSMEs (but not the SRBs obviously).
Anyhow, to your original point, the failure occurred in the second stage, prior to first stage ignition, in a procedure that is similar for most rocket manufacturers out there.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
I'm sure it was insured, even if the insurance was basically an escrow against public liability in the event of a catastrophic launch anomalies involving the public. It's not like you can go to three repair facilities and get written estimates on repair cost!
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Good answer. I immediately thought "Getting up there is the hard part". Thanks for explaining why.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I'm sure you can find web sites that talk about that stuff all the time. Try google.
Here, generally, I find that only *you* are talking about that stuff.
I know you're trying to make a point, but your spear is blunted.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I have, in fact, added them. Four times in the past 40 years. This is how often any R7 derivative has failed in the first minutes after launch. Almost all other failures were in the third stage which is most certainly not "exploded on pad". And if I had counted just the actual Soyuz, it would be just two times in the past 40 years or so: in 1983 and in 2002. Soyuz 11 was 45 years ago and it neither has exploded on the pad, nor in the first minutes after launch. The reentry vehicle failed. Soyuz 1 happened almost 50 years ago and was also a reentry vehicle failure. Apples and oranges - SpaceX can't send people in space and can't take them back to earth in first place.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
The ones where the mostly empty tube are American and the motors are Russian? Is that the one you are thinking about?
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.
He also didn't consider who he was talking with. There might be a better than 50% chance that I'll be dead in 20 years. Young folks think they will live forever.
Bruce Perens.
They are too busy spouting groundnut nonsense today.
Bruce Perens.
Yes, of course. But this was not the case for booster rockets. They were mostly one-use, and they did not have a throttle capability. If you were not launching the design weight, you added ballast. Or sometimes a secondary payload.
Bruce Perens.
I'd be really happy for the SABRE engine to work, but it's not clear that it simplifies the problem. If wings were necessary we'd not have all of those recovered boosters. Spaceplanes thus seem to be a dead end. And we have yet to see that the SABRE engine ends up being lighter, for a given payload to space and booster return, than a plain rocket.
Bruce Perens.
Having the payload aboard took a day off the launch cycle. It was, however, a relatively new thing for SpaceX and maybe they won't do it again soon.
I bet John Glenn would have been more confident riding a rocket on which all engines had been thoroughly tested. Just not with him in it.
Bruce Perens.
Yes, that really is the biggest problem. So, suppose we build a vehicle to take people to Mars. It needs to have enough space for them, and all of the supplies they'd need, and a rocket to get into Mars transfer orbit, stop when there, and get back to Earth transfer orbit, and stop when there too.
Such a thing might be as large as ISS. After all, it does a similar job of being a habitat for people. Now, ISS was assembled incrementally, but we learned that it would have been better to build a big rocket and lift the whole thing at once, the way we did with Skylab on a Saturn V. Once it was there, it only took a much smaller Saturn 1B to get to it.
So, yes, the biggest deal about a manned mission to Mars is building a rocket that can lift as much as or more than the Saturn V to take the vehicle to space in one shot. More economically than the Saturn V, with booster recovery and maybe second-stage recovery. And this is actually referred to as "BFR", for "big rocket".
And we'd probably need two or three launches of this thing, because we would also be sending a ground habitat to Mars, a fuel factory, and an orbit-to-ground transfer vehicle.
But the problem is still lifting.
Bruce Perens.
Well, as it's clear to Mr. Rogozin now, you can razz us for a little while but it doesn't last forever. He got the trampoline he asked for.
Bruce Perens.
Ouch. That was disappointing. I have expected better from you, Bruce, not this kind of a strawman argument. Have I accused you being a paid Musk shill?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I simply meant that SpaceX will soon enough be in the crew business despite today's setback, and Russia will be the one catching up with reuse.
Bruce Perens.
Darn it! You're right!
#DeleteChrome
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...
Also, it was the second stage that appears to have failed, taking the first stage with it.
...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.
Russia probably won't implement reuse at all - it was planned in the 1980ies with the Zenit boosters for Energia having wings and Buran autolanding software - the Zenit engine is still reusable - but the plan was killed together with the USSR and Angara is going to be a classic rocket. It is too bad really, I am fascinated by the Soviet space program, it has a kind of a retro-futuristic vibe, sort of steampunk or atompunk feel and was very impressive, especially given the general lack of funds and not quite as developed industry. But after 1991 nothing really new or interesting came out, the space program lost at least one generation of engineers, if not two, and the pissing contest between Russian and Ukrainian OKBs was also sad.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
We had a Soyuz capsule on the old Hornet in Alameda for a while, the Soyuz really looks like a diving bell. Love those small museums that let you get close to things and touch them. The Apollo 15 quarantine trailer is there too, another great piece of streamlined metal retro tech. Not holding out much hope for the Russians when they vacate the space station.
Bruce Perens.
I had a friend of a friend who knew someone who worked at NASA cleaning the toilets there, and she said people saying what you said were wrong.
So, there you have it.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Well... I can see the use in testing it, but it DOES seem rather foolish to do it with the actual satellite on board. I mean, that really saves nothing. Why not do the exact same test with the exact same rocket (so that, indeed, you can test the whole system) with a dummy load?
It will give you all the same parameters and data to see if your rocket works and has no structural failures, but wouldn't entail the loss of the actual satellite (and dito raise in insurance they'll suffer) by the loss of a 2 billion-worth satellite.
I'm not agreeing with those such a 'wet test' isn't useful to do in front, but it doesn't seem a good cost-benefit analysis, nor a good reason to take the risk of losing the satellite. I mean: if everything went well, it would have went well for the launch too, and if something borks, you'll lose the satellite anyhow, whether it's with this test or with the actual launch.
In comparison, if you do it with a dummy load, it's like this: if everything goes well, it will go well with the satellite too, and if something goes wrong, you'll only lose a dummy-load, not something worth 2 billion.
In both cases you get the necessary data and assurance that nothing big went wrong (or data on what went wrong). But in the latter case you take a lot less risk with your customers' expensive goods, your reputation, and the possibility of your insurance getting raised.
So... I understand the test, but I don't understand why they test it *this way*.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Mars isn't difficult. It just costs the same to launch 1 ton to mars as launching 10 tons to LEO. It also turns out that doing anything useful in 1 ton is very difficult (you certainly can't send person + everything needed to keep them alive).
Got a citation for this quote? It's fantastic, but a Google search turns up nothing but this thread...
Got a citation for this quote?
No sorry, I can't give you a citation, but I saw it on a documentation on NTV or Poenix in Germany. They also mentioned that that he was as scientific genius, who got involved with the wrong crowd.
The dude was later accused of being a Nazi, but when push comes to shove, he built the rocket that took us to the Moon! h
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Better to figure it out with a $200M satellite on board than human lives.
It depends if you consider Facebook executives humans...