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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

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Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#101
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of any off-the-shelf that are qualified as reliable at the temperatures of cryogenic fluids? (F9 LOX is believed to be at roughly -200 Centigrade, or around 70 Kelvin.)

I can't think of the manufacturer of the top of my head, but there are definitely off-the-shelf options. They are used on the LN2 tanks and dewars you see at a lot of electronics (and I'm sure other) manufacturers, and I'm pretty sure are standard kit for any cryogenic vessel. I think the bigger issue, as one commentor alluded to, is that you might not want to vent whatever is in the rocket straight to atmosphere.

LN2 isn't combustible. LN2 isn't stored at the high pressures that cryogenic LOX and RP-1 are. RP-1 has a flashpoint of 110f, liquid oxygen would turn pretty much every spark into a party including turning a lot of materials which are not normally combustible under atmospheric levels of oxygen highly combustible.

Basically once the cryogenic fuel starts to warm up you have to launch or to empty the tanks, the tanks are pumped out into reservoir tanks which are usually below the launch pad and fueling or emptying the rocket is in general the most dangerous part of the launch/abort sequence. Temperature and pressure variance, vibrations, leaks, and a lot of moving parts if anything goes wrong it can result in a pretty big explosion.

Overall they do have ways to empty the tanks, but this is a controlled pump out of the fuel at pressures and rates that would be as safe as one can get when dealing with supercooled liquid oxygen and kerosene, uncontrolled venting is a big no no.

You can similarly see this on larger tanks of both inert and reactive gases, a small propane tank could have a PRV because a flame out is likely to be less dangerous than an explosion in a BBQ setting, a tanker won't have a PRV because if it vents several tons of propane the result would be as bad or worse than a potential or an actual explosion. LN2 tanks also have PRV's as long as they are small enough to be safely vented but as soon as you go into a large enough volume where venting it is no longer safe whatever fail safe you implement has to be controllable.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#102
post #18
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 repercus…

Unless they happen to have a backup satellite already built, nothing SpaceX can do is going to accomplish this mission in 2016. There's no chance whatsoever that IAI is going to crank out a new satellite in just 3 months.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#103
post #76
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were no personal injuries, so I can't really be sad about a piece of electronics.

Agree. "Sad" is the PC thing to say when something like that happens. In most people's lives it's a big "who cares". [1] The fact that you were downvoted (at least when I saw your comment) indicates people don't agree with what you are saying and is an example of trying to enforce a particular type of thinking on someone else as far as what they should think or feel. [1] Of course I wouldn't say "who cares" directly…

Why the need to comment on perceived downvoting injustice? Is it that big a deal? Is there a downvoted support group somewhere? :P

Anyway, here's the scanner feed of Kennedy Space Center Communicationshttp://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/705

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#105
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention money. $200MM investment into space, gone. https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/613f262a-70...

The money didn't disappear, it paid the people working on the project all the way down to the miners who dug up the minerals and the fast-food workers who made the cheeseburger that engineer bought that one time. It did fail to earn a return, however.

You're advocating the Broken Window Fallacy.

http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/08/broken-window-fal...

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's tons of work. Lots of heart and soul went into that. I can still be sad for people even if we didn't lose people.

Not to mention money. $200MM investment into space, gone. https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/613f262a-70...

I would guess they lost a lot less than the $200m initial investment, which included design & development of both the satelite and ground control systems. My assumption would be that only the satellite itself was destroyed in this explosion.

From the quote below, they reference $85 to cover launch, insurance, and 1 year of operating costs. Presumably that insurance would cover some of the costs of an event like this?

Quote from an article on this (http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-1000759794)

Spacecom Satellite Communications' (TASE:SCC) board of director has authorized management to sign a contract with Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) to build and buy the Amos 6 communications satellite for $200 million. IAI will build the satellite and its ground control systems, and will provide operating services. The company plans to launch the Amo6 in the first quarter of 2015, and its operating life will be at least 16 years.

Spacecom estimates that the cost of launching, insuring and one year's operation of the Amos 6 will be $85 million. The company has to pick a launch company. Spacecom said that it will seek financing for the Amos 6 from IAI and foreign sources.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention money. $200MM investment into space, gone. https://www.reddit.com/live/xix3m9uqd06g/updates/613f262a-70...

Is that the manufacturing cost, or does it include the development cost? Making another should be cheaper than making the first one; and this is Amos-6 -- how different is it from Amos-5?

Judging by the Wikipedia articles, Amos-5 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-5) and Amos-6 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-6) use entirely different satellite buses.

Amos-5 uses the Russian-built Ekspress 1000H, while Amos-6 is only the second satellite to use the Israeli AMOS 4000.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#109

Looks like they had a payload go with it. Sad. > "SpaceX confirm Amos-6 was aboard the Falcon 9 and was lost in the explosion." https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/77135388623807283...

I know nothing about space - why are they doing tests, where the rocket could possibly explode or fail, with the payload on board?

They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. Not an impossible scenario. Lots of energy stored up in one of those rockets.

Just like when we test software, they want to have everything as close to what they would expect on launch day as possible (2 days from now). All the stresses, the structure, etc. That means putting stage 2 and the payload on top of the main rocket before the test starts. They probably did a lot of tests before the payload was on board as well, and those didn't reveal whatever flaw has caused this issue.

Yes, it sucks that the payload was lost but there will have been insurance to cover the loss. No human lives lost, no cruise missile scenario, no out of control fire... this is the best case scenario for a rocket failure.

Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral

#110

Looks like they had a payload go with it. Sad. > "SpaceX confirm Amos-6 was aboard the Falcon 9 and was lost in the explosion." https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/77135388623807283...

Per @SpaceX, the issue was not with the rocket itself, but a pad anomaly and the Amos-6 payload was to be Facebook's first-ever satellite.
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