From the twitter feed: http://imgur.com/6b6MfNQ
404 for me.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
11–20 of 560 posts
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#12CNBC says that NBC says (I know...) that thankfully nobody was injured
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/01/spacex-rocket-explodes-at-cap...
EDIT: apparently it happened at t:-3m so nobody was around
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#13Live thread over on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#14Wild-ass speculation in the absence of more information than a tweet and a photo of a pad fire: SpaceX test-fire the first stage motors before each launch. If this was a test firing that went spectacularly wrong, it's embarrassing -- but there won't have been any human beings within blast range and it's better to fail in test than to fail in flight with a payload on top. (If it was a catastrophic failure during fueli…
Test fire for the launch of a commercial satellite (AMOS-6), which had been scheduled for a few days hence (and now presumably delayed, along with the rest of their launch schedule, pending further investigation). It might conceivably have been during fueling/de-fueling around the test. It's not yet clear from public reports whether the payload was attached at the time of the test-fire; sometimes they are, sometimes…
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Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#15Looks like this may have been the Falcon 9 getting ready to launch AMOS-6 on 9/3. Not a previously flown rocket.
Static Fire for that launch was due today which is probably during which this happened.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#16You can see the smoke plume on the radar image from Melbourne airport weather radar
Live link:
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#17Wild-ass speculation in the absence of more information than a tweet and a photo of a pad fire: SpaceX test-fire the first stage motors before each launch. If this was a test firing that went spectacularly wrong, it's embarrassing -- but there won't have been any human beings within blast range and it's better to fail in test than to fail in flight with a payload on top. (If it was a catastrophic failure during fueli…
Rumor on the Reddit SpaceX thread is that it blew up at T-3 minutes, so likely during fueling ops.
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/50n5cl/rspacex_cape...
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#18Wild-ass speculation in the absence of more information than a tweet and a photo of a pad fire: SpaceX test-fire the first stage motors before each launch. If this was a test firing that went spectacularly wrong, it's embarrassing -- but there won't have been any human beings within blast range and it's better to fail in test than to fail in flight with a payload on top. (If it was a catastrophic failure during fueli…
Test fire for the launch of a commercial satellite (AMOS-6), which had been scheduled for a few days hence (and now presumably delayed, along with the rest of their launch schedule, pending further investigation). It might conceivably have been during fueling/de-fueling around the test. It's not yet clear from public reports whether the payload was attached at the time of the test-fire; sometimes they are, sometimes…
> of a commercial satellite (AMOS-6)
According to wikipedia this is related to the AMOS-2 staelite leased by Facebook to provide internet coverage in part of Africa.
An interesting clause in their contract is:
"The parties have agreed to the right to terminate the contract if Amos-6 and the ground gateways in France, Italy and Israel are not ready for service by January 1, 2017"
So this fire could have wider repercussions if SpaceX doesn't get a new launch ready in time. (Unless that same contract also has a clause about SpaceX failure vs IAI failure.)
> but it's still liquid, so you can't just vent it off.
You can vent off liquid to keep the pressure down, but since it's heavier than air it will just add to the fire. Unless maybe they have some sort of piping system connected to the vent to route the extra fuel elsewhere.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#19Live video stream from the Kennedy Space Center (you can paste the link into something like VLC):
http://kscwmserv1.ksc.nasa.gov/channel4
(Via Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/fcbc544a-70...)
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#20Wild-ass speculation in the absence of more information than a tweet and a photo of a pad fire: SpaceX test-fire the first stage motors before each launch. If this was a test firing that went spectacularly wrong, it's embarrassing -- but there won't have been any human beings within blast range and it's better to fail in test than to fail in flight with a payload on top. (If it was a catastrophic failure during fueli…
Test fire for the launch of a commercial satellite (AMOS-6), which had been scheduled for a few days hence (and now presumably delayed, along with the rest of their launch schedule, pending further investigation). It might conceivably have been during fueling/de-fueling around the test. It's not yet clear from public reports whether the payload was attached at the time of the test-fire; sometimes they are, sometimes…
So does that put the rocket in a situation where its either launch or warm up and explode? I'm adventurous, but I don't want to be strapped to that thing if thats the case.