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Government Watchdog Says SpaceX Falcon 9s Are Prone To Cracks (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader shares an Engadget article: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets apparently have a serious issue that could delay the company's manned missions. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Government Accountability Office investigated both Boeing and SpaceX -- the corporations that won NASA's space taxi contracts -- and found that Falcon 9's turbine blades suffer from persistent cracks. GAO's preliminary report says these turboblades' tendency to crack is a "major threat to rocket safety," since they pump fuel into Falcon 9's rocket engines. NASA's acting administrator Robert Lightfoot told the WSJ that government officials have known about the issue for months or even years. The agency even told SpaceX that the cracks are too much risk for manned flights. A spokesperson said SpaceX has "qualified [its] engines to be robust" to cracks, but it's now "modifying the design to avoid them altogether."
How all the positive stories about Tesla and SpaceX make reference to Elon but all the negative stories don't even mention him in the summary and often (as in this case) in the article.
Falcon 9 and the space shuttle are the only rockets whose engines have survived the launch so that they could have been inspected. And similar cracks have been found on shuttle engines too. Many other rocket engines very probbly have generated similar cracks during their burn, but those have not been inspected because the engines have gone to the bottom of the ocean.
There have been 28 launches of falcon. During those 28 launches, 279 Merlin 1-series engines have been used, with only 1 major engine problem. And even in that case, the rocket delivered the primary payload to the desired orbit; Each falcon 9 has 10 engines and only on of those 10 engines is critical whose failure leads to mission failure.
So, until now, the engines have had 99.64% reliability, and due the engine redundancy, only 10% of engine failures means mission failure on most launches(upper stage engine may not fail), meaning mission failure probability of 0.04% due failing engine if the engines keep working equally well in the future than they previously have been working.
No, the this turbine thing is not a big problem. Bigger problems are elsewhere, and spaceX is improving the turbine blades. They will continue launching the version with the weak turbine blanes for some time, and it's very unlikely it will cause ANY problems at all, and then later the will release the block 5 model of the rocket with more robust turbine blades.
It seem that the whole issue is "leaked" by some guy who is pissed to spaceX/Elon for something and the media is always eager to post this kind of "leaks" without really understanding what it is all about.
As Elon would say, the cracks may simply lead to Rapid Unscheduled Passenger Disembarkation.
#DeleteChrome
with a whole bunch of African Swallows?
-Unresolved symbol? Byte me!
He hasn't taken quality control seriously in any of his ventures, that is why they are all get-rich-quick schemes.
You want to back that up with... anything?
I think somebody said that over the past year or so.
While an important safety issue, it's good that it is identified and plans are in place to fix them before the Falcon is considered man-rated.
Excelsior!
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
they are all get-rich-quick schemes.
1. He was already rich.
2. If he wanted to get richER, then an aerospace company would have been about the worst possible way to do that. Historically, aerospace tends to make large fortunes into small fortunes rather than the other way around.
Autopilot is half baked. I don't think he's even looking into the fact that humans cannot safely 'take over' from autopilot. This from a person who is apparently so afraid of how AI will be dangerous for people, he makes no effort to make it as safe as possible in his own products.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I am not a rocket scientist, and I do not play one on TV either. How does the turbine function in this rocket?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
On all F9 history only 1 engine have failed. And that rocket has 9 engines. The other 8 compensated and the primary objective was ok.
Also GAO does not find technical problems....
Spacex and Nasa found it, a long time ago.
GAO only predicts it can be a cause for delays beyond 2018.
He doesn't have to his alternative facts stand on their own.
Only an enemy of the USA would question alternative facts.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yet, it was man rated. So was Apollo 14-17. Apollo 1 burned up during a test. They were man rated, yet much less reliable than the Falcon 9. No rocket is perfect.
Well, the RD-180 on the Atlas V (the one Boeing will use for their first flight) has been a very reliable engine.
This is NASA, they're pretty anal about manned spaceflight. You damn well better engineer the turbines to get rid of the cracks.
There is a huge potential for savings with SpaceX's model for launching and reusing rockets, but it all collapses given just a few failures.
If they get very high reliability of their rockets, reuse will end up being a cost destroyer. If they blow some rockets up the reuse savings will disappear.
No, you should try comprehending the abstract. Solid and liquid rocket motors are about as different as internal combustion engines and steam engines. Pointing to some generic study about some arbitrary solid rocket propellant as if that's supposed to mean anything whatsoever concerning a rocket that does not use solid rocket propellants of any kind just makes you look you don't know anything about the topic being discussed.
Next to my desk we have an Ire Extinguisher. Our boss is really assertive, so we like the idea of having it.
Humans may not be able to "take over" but accidents were reduced according to the NHTSA investigation. So... that would mean humans being able to take over aren't necessary.
That being said, there are plenty of videos online of humans taking over so you're claim is patently false. Maybe they can't take over while watching Harry Potter but that's not the intended use.
We don't have to worry about evil AI anymore. After much deliberation and analysis, Elon has arrived at the conclusion that we are almost certainly living in an advanced race's computer simulation!
I wasn't sure about the NHTSA investigation. All it seems to prove to me is that people heard about how not to use Autopilot through the first crash and were shit scared/shocked into using it more sparingly and cautiously. Somehow it got spun that Autopilot was safer but I wonder if they tracked whether people were just disengaging it more often because they were afraid. People will forget eventually until the next thing happens.
So an online video of one person taking over means all people have the attention span to be able to do it. That's some interesting logic there.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
My understanding is that Space-X has not actually re-used any engines on a real flight to this point. They have only fired some of the returned ones on test pads. That means any cracks on a returned engine were from just one flight.
It's good engineering design to have it be able to survive a loss of an engine.
It's bad engineering design to have a known failure mode and not address it - especially if humans are going to be on board - even if the rocket can handle the loss.
A paper faggot? Interesting, normally they are made out of pre-processed wood. have any images?
Silence is a state of mime.
I'm sorry, did you just suggest that we build our critical Defense infrastructure on components sourced from Soviet Russia?!!
That's insane.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I don't think you understand that aerospace is a very, very risky way to become richer.
If your goal is simply to become richer, being a asshole, owning a bunch of real estate and stiffing the people who work for you is a much more surefire method.
With regards to the cars: that's not what the link says. It says that it'll be extremely difficult to prove that they're safer, but not impossible that they are safer. Those are very different things.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Its a post on a gadget blog, what do you expect real journalism?
Dang it. I can't mod a thread I comment in. Please accept my lol.
lol
And without manned spaceflight how would we ever know that the eyeball changes shape, or the gut bacteria changes? Manned spaceflight is HARD. Doing it is dangerous, expensive but completely worthwhile.
Liquid rocket engines pump the cold fuel around the engine cone to simultaneously heat the fuel up and to keep the engine cool. You can shut down a liquid fuel engine, but once you've started up a solid fuel engine, it's impossible to shut down.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Autopilot is half baked.
The most advanced driver assist system ever released is half-baked, that government investigations have shown reduced the rate of crashes more than they caused? Thanks for the advice fluffer, your contribution was valuab.. sorry I couldn't finish that sentence.
Sorry, this one was worn out within 24 hours of the first run.
While he's looking for that paper faggot, he can help his friend Jack off his horse.
2. If he wanted to get richER, then an aerospace company would have been about the worst possible way to do that.
Reminds me of the Richard Branson quote:
"If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline."
"If he wanted to get richER, then an aerospace company would have been about the worst possible way to do that"
And became the major backer and then the CEO of an AUTO company around the same time - another great way to turn a large fortune into a small one even if you weren't trying to make fully electric cars.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Yes. If only they did some kind of testing with those rocket engines so they could evaluate their performance before they launched them.....like maybe put them on a test stand and run them and then take them apart to see how they did.
Very worthwhile testing no doubt but still a pale substitute for actually launching & retrieving them
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
The Antares uses these which were left over from the Soviet Union:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Take a look at the section on "design" here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
That is why you have prototypes such as the thing that failed.
Exactly. when I read the article of his own link, it was clearly mentioned: "Under even aggressive testing assumptions, *existing* fleets would take tens and sometimes hundreds of years to drive these miles"
Maybe he didn't read the article well himself? Obviously, if one would have an 'existing fleet' of 1000 vehicles it could take tens of years, but if you have 1000000 vehicles you could have that within a couple of months.
I find it sometimes puzzling that people want to make a point , but than don't read their own linked articles, which doesn't corroborate their claim at all if you read them comprehensively.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
In regard to cracks caused by the pressure and heat of the fuel when ignited, or of the turbineblades which pump the fuel, etc., it gives an exact representation, not a 'pale substitute'. There are some form of stresses that are less accurate when measured on ground-tests, but most of it provides excellent proof of reliability (or lack thereof) at the same level as if the rocket *were* retrieved afterwards.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
Dunno why it hasn't been said, but SpaceX did not design the turbopump in their engines.
Kick his ass while he is down. Do it again!
There is an easy solution to this. Do what NASA did for the Shuttle engines and redefine cracks in the turbines to be a maintenance problem instead of a flight safety problem.
> Or become President.
Or run unsuccessfully for president.
http://business.financialpost.... Leading up to the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore filed a financial report claiming a net worth of less than $2 million. Today he's worth $200 million. Let's just say those $100,000+ speaking fees didn't hurt.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
That adds no more clarity than the original post...
I'm still waiting for him to announce that he is Iron Man...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?