Here's good video of the test/failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ#t=1m10s
Frame-by-frame: http://rowvid.com/?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ&t=71.75&s=0.25
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
421–430 of 560 posts
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Fire crews can't approach until the fire burns itself out - too toxic. You're thinking of hypergolic propellants like hydrazine and nitric acid. This is kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen. Not particularly toxic, just hot as hell. The deluge system in shuttle launches was for the flame trench and sound dampening to avoid the air pressure from the noise damaging the vehicle, not fire extinguishing. You can see the la…
Although the satellite itself had a lot of hydrazine on board. That's probably what caused the smaller second explosion when the fairing fell off and hit the ground.
Yes that's my guess as well. 200 million dollar firecracker
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#423Earlier 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.
Unfortunately, it's 2 for 29.
But if you look at the FT version, it's 1 for 8.
1. What kind of insurance will be needed on a billion dollar NSA satellite? $100 million? $125 million? It's not so cheep anymore, and considering delays etc. It's not such a great deal anymore. 2. They probably should have a "stable" platform and a "beta" platform, with a discount offered for beta.
Unfortunately, the "move fast and break things" attitude doesn't work with rockets.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#424This is crazy!
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same reason they did a false flag bombing attempt on US and British targets in the 50s instead of simply asking for support?
Are we allowed to go 60 years back to find something on everyone else we have a beef with as well? ;-)
Stealing nuclear triggers then claiming they destroyed them well in testing might also qualify - that was more recent.
The point is that for an ally, they seem to be OK with rather rude behaviour.
I'm not suggesting they did anything here, just that it wouldn't be a mind blowing surprise, unlike if, say Canada did.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#426Earlier quoted context omitted.
For more context, all (edit: American!) rockets for decades have had onboard self destruct systems and a "Range Safety Officer" on the ground whose entire job is to determine if and when to deploy this self destruct system. The cruise missile scenario is highly unlikely as the rocket itself would be destroyed soon after leaving its intended trajectory.
Imagine how stressful that job would be when astronauts are the payload!
Don't worry, unlike the space shuttle, rockets have escape mechanisms. In that specific case, the astronauts would probably have survived as the emergency rocket thingies would have fired and evacuated them far from the explosion before it could reach the capsule.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#427The music in the techcrunch video seemed a bit inappropriate.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Also, we really don't want to have all the communication satellites to have the same bus, and find out years later that they have some bug that causes them to malfunction after years in orbit.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#429Earlier 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. 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.
For more context, all (edit: American!) rockets for decades have had onboard self destruct systems and a "Range Safety Officer" on the ground whose entire job is to determine if and when to deploy this self destruct system. The cruise missile scenario is highly unlikely as the rocket itself would be destroyed soon after leaving its intended trajectory.
Nit: flight termination system does not cause the rocket to magically vanish. It will still continue on its current trajectory and impact Earth somewhere. It just causes the rocket to stop thrusting and, IIRC, disperses the fuel/oxidizer so that we don't end up with large quantities of fuel/oxidizer in a small area on ground.
Re: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket has exploded at Cape Canaveral
#430Looks like they had a payload go with it. Sad. > "SpaceX confirm Amos-6 was aboard the Falcon 9 and was lost in the explosion." https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/77135388623807283...
I know nothing about space - why are they doing tests, where the rocket could possibly explode or fail, with the payload on board?
Well, I know that In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream.