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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

#401

Post by mabbo »

ygra wrote: post #114
mabbo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They do the tests to validate that this rocket won't turn into a cruise missile, headed for the nearest residential area. In that case the rocket has a flight-termination system, though, which should activate as soon as it veers too far outside the planned/expected parameters of the flight.

It too should work. Just like rockets shouldn't explode while loading fuel before a test firing.

But of all systems I never want to have to test in production, the flight-termination system is at the top of my list.

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

#402

Post by dogma1138 »

manarth wrote: post #293
dogma1138 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, build…

The satellite build costs $200m. Launch 1 costs $600m: total cost, $800m. Launch 2 costs $200m: you can build 2 spare satellites for the same cost (assuming you don't pay for the launches that go boom; and even if you do, that still gives you one spare satellite).

Production doesn't work like this all the time, not everyone is the US government.

Building 2 would cost more than double, or it will take twice as long.

There are huge lead times involved, subcontractors with other commitments and other bottlenecks in the pipeline. Not to mention that even if you do manage to build 2 in the same time window at only double the cost you still have the issue with the launch window, a launch accident would most likely ground the provider for a very long time which means you have to find another launch provider.

Spacecom had a launch window from spacex, spacex has a queue of 9-10 more launches already set, there will now be a huge delay and possible cancelation even if Spacecom had another unit they couldn't just launch it next month.

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

#403

Post by jccooper »

TheGuyWhoCodes wrote: post #391
objclxt wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but how hard will it be to just fly a drone there with some kind of projectile? It's a massive long metal tube full of extremely flammable things...what seems more likely: drone with projectile entering a highly restricted piece of airspace, or as rockets are want to do, it blew up by itself.

Of course it's more likely that there was a malfunction, no one is saying otherwise, I was just wondering how SpaceX guards their lunch pad from aerial intrusions, hitting a small drone flying fast isn't an easy target and you'd have to have a constant watch for them.

> I was just wondering how SpaceX guards their lunch pad from aerial intrusions

Mostly by being on an Air Force base, many miles away from anywhere someone might operate a "drone". Wouldn't help much against a fixed-wing telepresence rig, but not much would.

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

#404

Post by bluehawk »

intrasight wrote: post #313
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...

Stock is down about 10%. Makes me wonder if high-speed traders seek realtime video feeds of such launches. Is the "official" feed delayed?

There was no official feed, it wasn't a launch, it was a pre-launch test fire.

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

#405

Post by mikeash »

xwvvvvwx wrote: post #312
dogma1138 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes years to build a satellite, the bus, and every component is purposely built each component and the satellite itself goes through months of testing and even if they could build one within 6 months all of the contracts would expire by then which will require Spacecom to open the bids again. All of the contracts were based on AMOS-6 being operational by a given date, AMOS-6 has been "under construction" for pro…

Why does every satellite have to be custom made like this? Without knowing anything about it, it seems as though most communications satellites do pretty much the same thing?

They aren't built in very large numbers. There are maybe a couple dozen commsat launches per year, and they do have fairly different requirements a lot of the time. There are variables like frequency, spot size, transmission and receive power, and whether the satellite does any on-board processing or routing or whether it just acts like a "bent pipe." There is some standardization, but not a whole lot. Economies of scale just don't quite kick in enough yet.

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

#406

Post by mabbo »

dTal wrote: post #155
mabbo wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Nitpick: you're thinking of a ballistic missile. Cruise missiles are more like exploding fixed-wing drones. The V-1 flying bomb was a cruise missile, and the V-2 rocket was a ballistic missile.

'Cruise missile' has always sounded cooler than ballistic missile, imho. But you are 100% correct according to Wikipedia.

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

#407

Post by kuschku »

xenadu02 wrote: post #382
kuschku wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course SpaceX is so much cheaper than their competition that it may not matter, and reuse is about to make them cheaper still. They’re 2 million USD more expensive per launch for a mid-size satellite than the Ariane 5 is, so I’m not sure I understand what you mean.

No they aren't; SpaceX is charging around $62m and Arianespace charges $100-$130m for the same launch. The first few Falcon 9 launches were a lot cheaper, around $40m I think. I'm sure SpaceX would still be massively profitable at that price, but they're already over-booked so might as well raise prices to generate more capital since building rockets is an ahem capital intensive business. If SpaceX can re-use rocket…

Actually, that’s not true.

For the mid-size launches that SpaceX is billing 62m$ for, Ariane bills 60m$ for.

What Arianespace offers at 130m$ is instead something SpaceX isn’t even offering currently, as their second stage is far inferior to Ariane’s.

(Ariane always bundles a 130m$ and 60m$ contract per launch together).

If SpaceX can relaunch the rockets multiple times, that might reduce the cost indeed, but they also have far increased labor costs up ahead, as they can’t keep everyone working overtime for free forever.

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

#408

Post by jccooper »

xwvvvvwx wrote: post #312
dogma1138 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes years to build a satellite, the bus, and every component is purposely built each component and the satellite itself goes through months of testing and even if they could build one within 6 months all of the contracts would expire by then which will require Spacecom to open the bids again. All of the contracts were based on AMOS-6 being operational by a given date, AMOS-6 has been "under construction" for pro…

Why does every satellite have to be custom made like this? Without knowing anything about it, it seems as though most communications satellites do pretty much the same thing?

There are many standard components, though satellites are low-enough volume that almost nothing is really "off the shelf". The custom bits and integration are plenty of work (and time) in themselves.

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

#409

Post by GarrisonPrime »

rbanffy wrote: post #328
Arjuna wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Updates... Elon tweeted: "Loss of Falcon vehicle today during propellant fill operation. Originated around upper stage oxygen tank. Cause still unknown. More soon." [1] SpaceX tweeted: "At approximately 9:07 am ET, during a standard pre-launch static fire test for the AMOS-6 mission, there was an anomaly at SpaceX's Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 resulting in loss of the vehicle. The anomaly originated around…

Upper stage, so, unrelated to the reused first stage. Rocketry is hard... And very unforgiving.

As unforgiving as brain surgery. :)

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

#410

Post by rbanffy »

GarrisonPrime wrote: post #409
rbanffy wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upper stage, so, unrelated to the reused first stage. Rocketry is hard... And very unforgiving.

As unforgiving as brain surgery. :)

On brain surgery, the worst case scenario is one dead person. Rockets tend to inflate the body count prodigiously.
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