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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

#511

Post by WalterBright »

mikeash wrote: post #498
dredmorbius wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apollo had 17 missions and at least four failures or near failures that come to mind: * The Apollo 1 launch-pad fire, during a training session, using a 100% pressurised oxygen atomosphere. Three dead. Grissom, White, and Chaffee. I can list them from memory. * Apollo 11 suffered a lunar lander computer crash in the final seconds before landing, was programmed to land on what would have been unsurvivable terrain, and…

Apollo 13 also came a few seconds away from blowing up during launch. The second stage center engine began a pogo oscillation that at its peak was vibrating the engine at 16Hz with an amplitude of about three inches. By luck, the intense vibration tripped a fuel sensor and caused the computer to shut the engine down just before it would have ripped the whole thing to pieces.

As an engineer, I am utterly astounded that the Apollo launches were so successful. Nobody had bigger balls than the astronauts who got in them.

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

#512

Post by aws_ls »

jessaustin wrote: post #431
jlebrech wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a facebook satelite doesn't sound too good anyways.

It's hard to imagine that this sort of scheme is the best way to provide broadband to most parts of Africa. Why can't they just put microwave links on their cell towers? This is some sort of speculative play by FB to bypass local influences.

They got rejected in India by activism among users and the regulator TRAI. So, I also wondered the exact same thing.

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

#513

Post by visarga »

Arjuna wrote: post #309
trothamel wrote: post #228

Here's good video of the test/failure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ#t=1m10s

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…

> all personnel were clear of the pad and there were no injuries

But it still must burn a hole in Musk's pocket.

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

#514

Post by taneq »

krisdol wrote: post #444
sickbeard wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So sabotage could be a factor?

This is in the realm of conspiracy theory. No evidence points to this. Nothing the parent comment said suggests it. I think you are filling in the blanks with your own hypotheses but they're accusatory shots in the dark at this point. It's possible, sure, but so are a lot of things.

This waving of tinfoil is making me wonder just how vulnerable a rocket like this would be to a sniper rifle bullet. I mean, it's pretty big, and it's full of all sorts of explosive goodies. I'd expect the chances of something going wrong if it's hit by a shot just as it lights up for a test run to be rather high.

Edit: Now imagine if last week you'd shorted as much stock as you could in the companies involved...

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

#515

Post by AstralStorm »

dingaling wrote: post #335
ProAm wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why you always build two.

> That's why you always build two. They very seldom do, at least for non-constellation projects. Cheaper just to pay the insurance premiums for loss of hardware and loss of earnings.

Unless you're banking on the sat being operational in a specific time frame for an acquisition to go through, like Spacecom did. They probably lacked enough capital to do so. Plus the failure still takes time to figure out.

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

#516

Post by AstralStorm »

stcredzero wrote: post #264
jakub_h wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That's why you always build two." Unless you're a Raman. Then you'll build three.

Preppers often say, you don't have it, unless you have two of it, and you don't have a backup until you have three.

Sometimes it is better to have one, just a very good one. Depends on the budget.

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

#517

Post by garaetjjte »

engi_nerd wrote: post #496
dredmorbius wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apollo had 17 missions and at least four failures or near failures that come to mind: * The Apollo 1 launch-pad fire, during a training session, using a 100% pressurised oxygen atomosphere. Three dead. Grissom, White, and Chaffee. I can list them from memory. * Apollo 11 suffered a lunar lander computer crash in the final seconds before landing, was programmed to land on what would have been unsurvivable terrain, and…

Eh, Apollo 11's difficulties were not a computer crash, but the computer throwing up repeated alarms saying "You are asking me to do to much, so I'm going to follow the rules you instilled in me about what tasks are vehicle critical and what tasks can be dropped." AKA the 1202 program alarm. Which happened because the rendezvous radar was left in the AUTO mode for descent, when it was only meant to be used for ascent…

It wasn't "You are asking me to do to much, so I'm going to follow the rules you instilled in me about what tasks are vehicle critical and what tasks can be dropped.", but "You are asking me to do to much, so I'm going to reboot". It also overcompensated throttle lag due to old documentation.

http://www.doneyles.com/LM/Tales.html

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

#518

Post by ygra »

robryk wrote: post #429
Phlarp wrote: post #125

Earlier 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.

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.

Indeed, all it does is break up the rocket. Depending on when it happens during the launch we might still end up with a fireball near the ground (unlikely to be near anything inhabited, though, as there's a lot of free space around launch sites) or with a quickly disintegrating rocket because it's already at high speeds.

There will still be debris, of course, but I guess the reasoning is that it's preferable to have relatively small debris, than one large piece of exploding debris.

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

#519

Post by iamgopal »

MicroBerto wrote: post #260
anigbrowl wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's sad about it? They have insurance, it's just hardware. Nobody died or was even injured, so it's merely an invoncenience.

There are engineers out there who actually care about their work, and put years into it. It's really most sad for them.

For the some of those engineers, its a loss of an Olympic gold...

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

#520

Post by dredmorbius »

disillusioned wrote: post #510
dredmorbius wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NB: wont to do. Though you've given me a reason to look up the etymology. Now I now: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=wont&allowed_in_fra...

NB: Now I know :-)

Aaaaagh!

:-)

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