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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

#171

Post by dogma1138 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #147
sangnoir wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A $200 million loss there, which sucks for the insurance company but better than losing a $2b custom government bird. In fairness, when did the government last lose a bird? Doesn't the ULA have a '100%' success rate (where success is getting payload to space, though some payloads fail to make it to the planned orbit)

I suspect the $2b custom government bird refers to the space shuttle. Of which we have, in fact, lost more than one.

More like NSA/CIA/NRO spy satellites.

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

#172

Post by jacalata »

mikeash wrote: post #160
gist wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You wouldn't say it directly to someone involved in the project, but you'll say it in a public forum where there's a decent chance some of those people will see it?

Seems reasonable to me.

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

#173

Post by vkou »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #147
sangnoir wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A $200 million loss there, which sucks for the insurance company but better than losing a $2b custom government bird. In fairness, when did the government last lose a bird? Doesn't the ULA have a '100%' success rate (where success is getting payload to space, though some payloads fail to make it to the planned orbit)

I suspect the $2b custom government bird refers to the space shuttle. Of which we have, in fact, lost more than one.

The shuttle was a vehicle with vastly different capabilities, and technical challenges to overcome, compared to a Falcon rocket.

There have been 133 successful shuttle launches, and 2 failed ones.

There have been 27 successful Falcon launches, and 2 failed ones.

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

#174

Post by wyager »

dogma1138 wrote: post #166
Patrick_Devine wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This disaster may have bigger implications for Spacecom. They were in the middle of being acquired by Beijing Xinwei and the successful launch of Amos 6 was supposed to be a factor in closing the deal[1]. I have no idea what blowing up on the pad means for the merger. 1. http://www.satellitetoday.com/technology/2016/08/24/spacecom...

It's a deal breaker most likely, the terms of the deal were based on AMOS-6 becoming operational by march 2017. There has been high level of criticism in Israel about the deal as many seen this as giving up it's sovereignty over its space platforms even tho under the deal the all operations of spacecom platforms would be still handled from Israel proper, I'm sure the r/conspiracies is already booming with sabotage th…

Won't they just relaunch in a few months? Not sure what the rebuild timeline is.

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

#175

Post by abduhl »

dogma1138 wrote: post #166
Patrick_Devine wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This disaster may have bigger implications for Spacecom. They were in the middle of being acquired by Beijing Xinwei and the successful launch of Amos 6 was supposed to be a factor in closing the deal[1]. I have no idea what blowing up on the pad means for the merger. 1. http://www.satellitetoday.com/technology/2016/08/24/spacecom...

It's a deal breaker most likely, the terms of the deal were based on AMOS-6 becoming operational by march 2017. There has been high level of criticism in Israel about the deal as many seen this as giving up it's sovereignty over its space platforms even tho under the deal the all operations of spacecom platforms would be still handled from Israel proper, I'm sure the r/conspiracies is already booming with sabotage th…

Sounds like SpaceX just killed multiple deals for this company. Could someone who knows about this kind of stuff (I assume this subset of the population is small) comment on whether there is recourse against SpaceX for losing the payload?

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

#176

Post by dogma1138 »

brianwawok wrote: post #159
kuschku wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ESA’s Ariane also has a far better successrate than SpaceX’s Falcon, and if I’d send a satellite to space, unless it would be a really cheap one, I’d likely not use the Falcon as delivery vehicle.

So you would rather pay $600 million per launch with 95% chance of success vs $200 million per launch with 93% chance of success? There is no such thing a 100% chance of success, everyone has a chance of failure. I would not put ESA more than a few % more reliable. Math says your satellite would need to be really expensive for the price difference to be worth it.

Depending on the cost of failure, however for virtually every mission the 600M$ is a winner this is a no-brainer.

That "little" difference has huge huge economic repercussions, cost of insurance, ease of financing, and many other things. Not to mention that a satellite going boom can kill an operator if it doesn't have a backup. This isn't an insurance case where you get your money and try again the week after, building a satellite is a huge undertaking it takes years to build, years to negotiate the contracts for and you have to do it from scratch all over again if it goes boom.

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

#177

Post by woodchuck64 »

antisthenes wrote: post #162
skadamat wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty well documented that people at SpaceX work 80+ hours a week consistently: https://www.quora.com/How-many-hours-a-week-does-a-typical-S... http://spacenews.com/op-ed-3-things-to-know-if-you-want-to-w... https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/25ixxq/is_spacex_wo...

Wouldn't be surprised if some overworked engineer made a mistake.

We're just past the anniversary of the last mishap: http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/07/20/crs-7-investigation-up... I also get the feeling that extra sleep and recovery time encourages the kind of creative thinking that recognizes unusual ways for things to go wrong and corrects for them in advance.

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

#178

Post by keyme »

wyager wrote: post #174
dogma1138 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a deal breaker most likely, the terms of the deal were based on AMOS-6 becoming operational by march 2017. There has been high level of criticism in Israel about the deal as many seen this as giving up it's sovereignty over its space platforms even tho under the deal the all operations of spacecom platforms would be still handled from Israel proper, I'm sure the r/conspiracies is already booming with sabotage th…

Won't they just relaunch in a few months? Not sure what the rebuild timeline is.

No, they don't have redundancies for satellites. It's 2 to 3 years.

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

#179

Post by tamana »

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…

Insurance isn't magic pixie dust, it just moved the cost around.

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

#180

Post by sickbeard »

dogma1138 wrote: post #166
Patrick_Devine wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This disaster may have bigger implications for Spacecom. They were in the middle of being acquired by Beijing Xinwei and the successful launch of Amos 6 was supposed to be a factor in closing the deal[1]. I have no idea what blowing up on the pad means for the merger. 1. http://www.satellitetoday.com/technology/2016/08/24/spacecom...

It's a deal breaker most likely, the terms of the deal were based on AMOS-6 becoming operational by march 2017. There has been high level of criticism in Israel about the deal as many seen this as giving up it's sovereignty over its space platforms even tho under the deal the all operations of spacecom platforms would be still handled from Israel proper, I'm sure the r/conspiracies is already booming with sabotage th…

So sabotage could be a factor?
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