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So, the advantage of a weekend launch is that I could show my kids (boys 7 & 4), right? Facepalm . In the last few minutes, over a dozen K-Nex rockets have lifted off and exploded shortly after takeoff. Sigh. Not the best introduction to the second Space Age for them.... ah well, we'll try again later. At least nobody was aboard.
Can 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…
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Well, it is rocket science, and even though SpaceX has a higher reliability target, accidents do happen
Space is certainly hard, even for those that people might assume are good at it (NASA, Roscosmos, etc.). This failure is a likely setback for man-rating the falcon in the future.
There is almost no question that had there been people aboard this particular launch, and they were using the newer Dragon that has that capability, no loss of life would have occurred. Unless (of course) there were OTHER malfunctions, too. Never know. Space is indeed hard.
Yep... just saw... hate the silence on the stream Update: Looks like the explosion was triggered by Range Control in response to non nominal flight
Damn, that sucks, but not nearly as much as if it was a random explosion. I believe in this scenario, astronauts would be able to do an emergency separation, getting far away from the lower stage before it was detonated. My biggest worry from this is that human flights will be delayed (justly or unjustly.)
So in a case like this, would it be possible to have the pad abort system kick in? It could potentially pull the cargo module away and make an attempt to parachute it back for recovery? I doubt it could overcome the speed of the rocket but it might have a chance to separate it from the debris cloud?
Cargo dragon doesn't have a pad abort system. Dragon 2 would be able to escape just fine, though. Cargo dragon could _technically_ survive if didn't get blown up too much.
It appears to be intact after the explosion. You can see it detach and drift back in the video at about 2:35. https://twitter.com/nextlaunch/status/615191061636481024
Unfortunately, parachutes on the cargo version aren't armed during launch (would be bad if they accidentally deployed) so it'll have smashed into the ocean and broken up.
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Cargo dragon doesn't have a pad abort system. Dragon 2 would be able to escape just fine, though. Cargo dragon could _technically_ survive if didn't get blown up too much.
From the PR (and early test) angle: Is it possible to add the escape mechanism the cargo version? Perhaps this has no economical sense, but after the explosion it's better to write: "The main rocket suffered a RUD, the mission is canceled, but Buster would have survived."
"Non nominal flight"
What does it mean?
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/184876/how-did-n...
So, it's another way of saying something is 'out of tolerance'.
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Damn now I feel bad for saying that.
Yeah, we all knew the return and landing part is new and uncertain, but I thought they would at least get to try.
> The device aboard [today's launch] was actually a backup of the original meteor camera that blew up along with Orbital Sciences' Antares rocket in 2014.