The smoke looks fairly white and uniform. That suggests it's coming from the rocket fuels, not a burning building or other facility. To me, that means the safety protocols held, limiting the spread/damage. Hopefully nobody was hurt.
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
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
So does that put the rocket in a situation where its either launch or warm up and explode? I'm adventurous, but I don't want to be strapped to that thing if thats the case.
I'm sure it's not like that. Pressure relief valves aren't exactly rocket science.
You can't vent rocket fuel, the kerosine will ignite from the expansion and the friction in the valve alone.
Venting liquid oxygen is also a really really bad idea.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#43Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#44Wild-ass speculation in the absence of more information than a tweet and a photo of a pad fire: SpaceX test-fire the first stage motors before each launch. If this was a test firing that went spectacularly wrong, it's embarrassing -- but there won't have been any human beings within blast range and it's better to fail in test than to fail in flight with a payload on top. (If it was a catastrophic failure during fueli…
SpaceX frequently conducts these static fire tests with the payload on board. So unfortunately it's entirely possible that AMOS-6 is lost too. Very sad. Hopefully no one is hurt.
The entire pad may be totaled, too.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#45"This rocket was scheduled to launch the Amos-6 communication satellite, which among other functions included the capabilities for Facebook to spot-beam broadband for Facebook’s Internet.org initiative" Bad karma
No payload on rocket while hotfire test.
Payload is sometimes mated, just depends. No word yet on this payload.
https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/77134295079838924...
UPDATE: payload lost. https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/771352111657385984
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
So does that put the rocket in a situation where its either launch or warm up and explode? I'm adventurous, but I don't want to be strapped to that thing if thats the case.
I'm sure it's not like that. Pressure relief valves aren't exactly rocket science.
Do you know of any off-the-shelf that are qualified as reliable at the temperatures of cryogenic fluids? (F9 LOX is believed to be at roughly -200 Centigrade, or around 70 Kelvin.)
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#47"This rocket was scheduled to launch the Amos-6 communication satellite, which among other functions included the capabilities for Facebook to spot-beam broadband for Facebook’s Internet.org initiative" Bad karma
No payload on rocket while hotfire test.
"SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today's static fire, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload. Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries."[0]
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#48"This rocket was scheduled to launch the Amos-6 communication satellite, which among other functions included the capabilities for Facebook to spot-beam broadband for Facebook’s Internet.org initiative" Bad karma
No payload on rocket while hotfire test.
According to the Reddit the payload was on the rocket. https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/50n5cl/rspacex_cape...
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#49For all developers of anything. Repeat this mantra.
This is why we test, this is why we test, this is why we test.
It is especially important to repeat this mantra around management types who want last minute builds before going in front of important customers, because the light blue button looks SO much better then the dark blue button...
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#50My mind goes to the debugging stage after the dust has settled... how would a rocket scientist determine the cause of a RUD like this?