Isn't 180 seconds just the burn time of first stage? So it's when 2nd stage should fire?
SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
121–130 of 347 posts
Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#122Can anyone here with a little more knowledge answer the following please? Who pays for the expense of these types of failures? Does SpaceX have some sort of 3rd party insurance from a private insurer or are they insured by NASA or another branch of the US gov? How much is the equipment that got destroyed worth? If this happens multiple times in a short space of time as it seems to have recently does the cost of insur…
I don't know a whole lot more than you, but private insurance is definitely a thing for launches, and I would imagine SpaceX has a policy that covers this. The FAA has an interesting document about the space insurance market here: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...
Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#123I remember as a kid playing buzz aldrin's race into space I was fascinated by the exploding rockets. Now that I better realize the cost, no more fascinated. Trial and error has its costs
Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#124I would rather see SpaceX fail a thousand times unmanned than once with astronauts aboard: this is all part of progress forward.
Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#125[deleted]
Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#126“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#127I think (of course just an uneducated guess) things were going poorly from the beginning. It just looked slower than usual. Also, it looked like some of the engine exhaust was in places it should not have been several seconds before the "anomaly". I hope they get everything figured out and get back on track soon. Best wished.
Do you think you might be having a hindsight bias?
Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#128Can anyone here with a little more knowledge answer the following please? Who pays for the expense of these types of failures? Does SpaceX have some sort of 3rd party insurance from a private insurer or are they insured by NASA or another branch of the US gov? How much is the equipment that got destroyed worth? If this happens multiple times in a short space of time as it seems to have recently does the cost of insur…
Both SpaceX and Orbital ATK carry insurance policies on their ISS resupply launches to protect against this sort of thing, although the policies are not absolutely comprehensive (Orbital's policy had a bothersome gap related to damages caused to the launch facility, owned by a third party). I do not know what the SpaceX vehicle's cost is, but I do know that the Antares rocket that Orbital ATK lost last year was itsel…
According to the One True Reliable Source of All Knowledge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Resupply_Services), SpaceX got $1.6 billion for 12 resupply missions, so that's about $133 million for the Falcon 9, the Dragon, and all the work involved in shooting them into space. I have no clue what their profit margin would be on that, but that at least gives us an upper limit.
Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#129Re: SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
#130Good that nobody was hurt. that reminds me that Elon Musk said that Antares rockets are junk, so now his own spacecrafts are exploding. Space tech has its problems. Maybe that will teach him to be a bit more humble. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/10/iss-bound-gear-...
I agree - even if what he said had some merit - it's never a good idea to trash your competitors on technical matters when what you are doing is really hard.