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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

#111

Post by tankenmate »

ars wrote: post #66
tomjen3 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Tell that to the people in Africa who will soon have no internet access once AMOS-2 fails. This payload, AMOS-6, was a replacement for the soon to fail AMOS-2 which among other things is part of a Facebook initiative to provide internet access in parts of Africa. I am not aware of any replacement in the works for it, so that service may just shut down, and who knows if it will ever start back up. So while this might…

It's a real bummer, also don't forget that now that SpaceX has had two payload losses in two years will mean that their insurance is very likely to go up.

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

#113

Post by falcolas »

artursapek wrote: post #67
joshdotsmith wrote: post #63

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 be quite surprised if the payload was not insured. Doesn't make it any easier on the people who poured their lives into the effort, but the owner will not be out any substantial investment capitol; just potential earnings until its replacement can be pushed up.

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

#114

Post by ygra »

mabbo wrote: post #109
nateberkopec wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 paylo…

> They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area.

In that case the rocket has a flight-termination system, though, which should activate as soon as it veers too far outside the planned/expected parameters of the flight.

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

#115

Post by 0xffff2 »

627467 wrote: post #104

For those overthinking about the loss of the payload: Contact (1997): "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?" I'd argue: at less than twice the price.

I don't understand what the quote has to do with this at all. It's neither a government payload, nor AFAIK do they have a second satellite.

Maybe I'm overthinking your comment.

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

#116

Post by jonknee »

300bps wrote: post #105
db48x wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

No, in this field sometimes stuff blows up unexpectedly and it's part of the cost of doing business. It's like feeling bad for a life insurance company when someone dies.

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

#118

Post by 0xffff2 »

apeace wrote: post #112
artursapek wrote: post #51

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...

Testing in production. Tisk tisk.

Every rocket is test fired before launch. SpaceX does do many things that might be considered "testing in production", but this isn't one of them.

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

#119

Post by TFortunato »

dogma1138 wrote: post #101
TFortunato wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

Thanks for the info! My experience in the past was mainly with large LN2 dewars, with liquid helium refrigerators added to re-condense the N2 gas back to a liquid, limiting the pressure (and limiting how often you needed and LN2 refill!). We had blow-off valves as a fail safe if pressures got too high if the cooling head ever failed. I'm sure working with cryogenic fuels is a whole different world.

As I commented, it's not that there aren't cryogenic temperature pressure relief valves, just that they may not be what you want!

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

#120

Post by dr_zoidberg »

nateberkopec wrote: post #65
artursapek wrote: post #51

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?

The Apollo 1 accident[0] was during a similar test (a "plugs out test", which tests the spacecraft independent of all the support systems on earth to verify that it works correctly on its own). The rationale behind all this tests is "better have a problem on the ground, where we can fix it, than have the spacecraft fail in space".

If you get interest in this stuff, the HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" has an episode about Apollo1 (and the series as a whole, though slightly dated on the FX side, is amazing).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1

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