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SpaceX Says Helium Loading Issue May Have Caused Falcon 9 Explosion (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nearly two months after a September 1 accident on the launch pad, SpaceX says it is nearing the conclusion of its investigation. Although the company has yet to identify the "exact root cause" of the accident that occurred during a static fire test just prior to a planned launch of a communications satellite, the investigation has reached an "advanced state." Shortly after the fiery incident, the company focused on a breach in the cryogenic helium system of the rocket's upper stage liquid oxygen tank. "Attention has continued to narrow to one of the three composite over-wrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) inside the LOX tank," the company stated in an update released Friday afternoon. "Through extensive testing in Texas, SpaceX has shown that it can re-create a COPV failure entirely through helium loading conditions. These conditions are mainly affected by the temperature and pressure of the helium being loaded." SpaceX intends to continue work to identify the precise cause of the accident and to improve its method of loading helium onto the rocket to prevent a repeat failure. The company also plans to resume testing Falcon 9 rocket stages at its facility in McGregor, Texas, soon. By taking this step in early November, SpaceX maintains that it is on track to resume flight operations of its Falcon 9 rocket before the end of 2016.
So it wasn't blown up by a shoulder launched missile after all?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
There were no allegations as such.
I've been following this closely but that's the first I've heard about any such allegations. Can you provide a link please?
Slashdot.org, smart ass. It's a Slashdot exclusive. You heard it here first.
Washington Post: Implication of sabotage adds intrigue to SpaceX investigation https://www.washingtonpost.com... That story was picked up all over the media.
What happened to the ULA sniper shooting out the oxygen tank?
I guess they mean structural failure causing a cascade of other problems.
No formal allegations, no, but SpaceX officials did ask to inspect the roof of the nearby ULA facility. They were denied access (as would be expected), and Air Force officials went in their stead, determining that nothing unusual was observed up there. The media reported it as if SpaceX was crying sabotage, but it was just standard due diligence. When your rocket goes boom, and your competitor has a facility close by with direct line of sight, it's only natural to want to rule out foul play.
ULA and NASA are two different entities.
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
I think that SpaceX has already demonstrated it can launch payloads with >75% reliability. That is good enough for putting cheap, standardized satellites into space, or supplies to the ISS. That could generate at least $300 million/year in revenue. SpaceX could downsize to that small.
Didn't the Hindenburg teach us anything?
It's good that they are able to track things down to a reproducable root cause.
There might be room for improvement if the root cause is something that the rest of the industry figured out decades ago.
The deeper root cause question is should/could they have forseen this failure mode if they had used lessons already learned from prefious industry failures.
If the answer is yes, then the corrective action should be to figure out a creative way to add the necessary information path while still staying nimble.
Spoiler: when you do something that's never been done before, you run into problems nobody's encountered before.
Who before SpaceX has put a helium-filled COPV in a super-cooled LOX tank before?
Oxygen Saturated - nearly anything becomes highly combustible. Some things like asphalt and charcoal become impact sensitive explosives.
David Barry Humerous piece in lighting BBQ
PortlandFireTraining Video
I wounder how the particular composite overwrap used behaves when saturated with liquid oxygen.
Every single other major space and even just military missile launching organization, from the Germans to the Russians.
Super-chilled LOX is not used often, usually 'normal' LOX is used.
Because NASA = ULA, right?
Moron.
As others have pointed out... that's not NASA. The article specifically refers to "[SpaceX's] fierce competitor United Launch Alliance". I honestly can't imagine how anyone could misinterpret that to mean they were talking about NASA.
They probably found the problem, but I would install high speed cameras covering every cm of the next bird and some extra internal sensors. I think the program prides itself on knowING what is happening, quick like a bunny.