251–260 of 347 posts
Hold on. So that's the second in a row ISS resupply mission that failed, isn't it? First was with the Progress in late April. How does this affect the ISS plans, does anyone now?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-destroyed...
Costs and catastrophic failures:[1] * United Launch Alliance (Boeing and Lockheed Martin): 0 "outright failures" and 83 successful launches, ~$110 million/launch * SpaceX: 1 failure and 18 successful launches, $60 million/launch If you are looking for someone to launch your assets into orbit, who do you choose? [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-destroyed...
It heavily depends on the cost of the asset. If a satellite costs close to 1bn, it worth to use $110/launch but more reliable rocket.
Costs and catastrophic failures:[1] * United Launch Alliance (Boeing and Lockheed Martin): 0 "outright failures" and 83 successful launches, ~$110 million/launch * SpaceX: 1 failure and 18 successful launches, $60 million/launch If you are looking for someone to launch your assets into orbit, who do you choose? [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-destroyed...
>If you are looking for someone to launch your assets into orbit, who do you choose? It heavily depends on the cost of the asset. If a satellite costs close to 1bn, it worth to use $110/launch but more reliable rocket.
Many organizations don't have the spare time and capacity to afford all of that; they or their project may simply be done.
Looks like Southwest Research Institute's meteor shower camera will have been lost again. They're not having much luck :( > 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. http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/27/meteor-camera-iss/
I get the impression looking back that he worked on so many projects he didn't have time to tell us about many.
Costs and catastrophic failures:[1] * United Launch Alliance (Boeing and Lockheed Martin): 0 "outright failures" and 83 successful launches, ~$110 million/launch * SpaceX: 1 failure and 18 successful launches, $60 million/launch If you are looking for someone to launch your assets into orbit, who do you choose? [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-destroyed...
This is an impressive reliability record, no doubt about it. However, it is fair to note that this is the "current generation" Atlas and Delta. The first Atlas was used during the Mercury program, so they've had more than 50 years of design refinement to get to that point.
Costs and catastrophic failures:[1] * United Launch Alliance (Boeing and Lockheed Martin): 0 "outright failures" and 83 successful launches, ~$110 million/launch * SpaceX: 1 failure and 18 successful launches, $60 million/launch If you are looking for someone to launch your assets into orbit, who do you choose? [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-destroyed...
>If you are looking for someone to launch your assets into orbit, who do you choose? It heavily depends on the cost of the asset. If a satellite costs close to 1bn, it worth to use $110/launch but more reliable rocket.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So with a 5.5% margin the $1.6 billion contract would be expected to yield $88 million in profit? Given what I'm assuming are large R&D expenditures on top of launch-related costs, I wonder whether the business is sustainable.
I used to work for Orbital as a NASA contractor. I never dealt with the business end of things, but the margins were small and very stable so long as there was work to be done (i.e. a giant (sub)contract on some huge NASA project). It wasn't exactly a pressure cooker of a work environment. The government stuff was a very different atmosphere than the commercial side.
I always heard that other parts of the company were far more laid back. Wish I had worked in one of those parts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Launch failures are absolutely AGONIZING. I was only an engineer on the sounding rocket program for a little under two years. Fortunately the two rockets I assisted with were successful, but there were payload failures while I was there that had to be investigated. The long days and nights some of my coworkers put in to investigate anomalies took a harsh toll on them. A month or so after I left, the program had a com…
It shouldn't be. I mean, things go wrong. It's the one universal truth of any engineering process. Finding out why the thing that went wrong went wrong, and making sure that it doesn't go wrong in the future is just part of the job. I work on an on-call rotation --- it's not as exciting as rocket science, which is both unfortunate and fortunate --- and yes, things go wrong; and one of the biggest rules of our process…
One of the takeaways I had from my time working with rockets was that rocket science isn't even rocket science, most of the time. But, I am very biased because my experience was overwhelmingly negative.
I agree with you on all the rest.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doubt it. If anything this is a PERFECT illustration of how well SpaceX is preparing. They know things like this can happen. Notice there was an extended period (multiple seconds) of the rocket smoking before it exploded. Everyone, automated systems included, KNEW something was wrong at that point, before it exploded. At which point dragon would have used its abort system to blast away from the first stage, and made…
From watching the video, it looks like the engine is running until breakup, which is very sudden. This suggests to me, based on no evidence whatsoever, that: 1. Something went wrong. 2. The onboard automation tried to compensate and kept going in the hope that it wasn't a fatal problem. 3. As soon as it realised it was a fatal problem and the vehicle was lost, it triggered range safety (aka the self destruct system).…
Gwynne stated in the press conference that, to her knowledge, the range safety system had not been activated.