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.
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
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/
Privatization - better, cheaper, faster... more bang for the buck.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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
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?
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.
Sorry, but that quote is wrong. The first reused booster is (was?) scheduled to launch SES-10 later this year.
Correct.
Is there independent confirmation of this, because I'm not hearing that?
Here.
What was blown up: AMOS-6
What's being launched on a reused rocket: SES-10
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
To Mars? I'd go. To America on a leaking creaking raft of wood and blowing canvas? Lots of folks went.
Bruce Perens.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Looking at the video frame by frame, it looks like the explosion starts between the rocket and the tower...
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
If it didn't have micro-fractures before, it sure does now... and they're definitely going to be hard to find.