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SpaceX – Launch Vehicle Failure
About 3 minutes in the vehicle appeared to explode. At the time it was ~15km downrange, going 1km/s and around 35km up in the atmosphere.
UPDATE: Contingency press conference scheduled for 12:30pm EST- NASA TV said they wouldn't have much to update before then.
- mabbo 11y agoAs the ship exploded, the words on the screen were something to the tune of "At this point, the ship is under the highest aerodynamic pressure".
- dasmoth 11y agoFrom the timeline, and from remembering past launches, I'm pretty sure it was well past Max-Q.
- mmarx 11y agoIndeed it was around main engine cutoff.
- LoSboccacc 11y agosame feeling here. anyway, you could see the cap going off before rocket was self destructed. dunno if was part of the sequence. the engine exhaust plume expansion reminded of that time they lost a nozzle due to high pressure, but again hard to tell if it was cause or effect from the armchair
- xgbi 11y agoI think Max-Q occured about a minute before. You can review the stream, it passed supersonic way before (you see the shock cone on the two sides), then max-q, then a minute later the explosion
- greglindahl 11y agoThis launch, the feed from SpaceX had all of those events marked in a timeline - a new feature. From the large number of people speculating about the timing of these events, it would seem that you were all watching some other livestream? Perhaps the NASA one? Might want to check out the SpaceX stream next time. Edit: the SpaceX website doesn't appear to have a recording of their live stream available.
- tocs 11y agoHate to see it also. It think things were going bad right from the beginning though (a completely uneducated guess).
- binoyxj 11y agoBREAKING: "The range confirmed that the vehicle has broken up. @SpaceX is putting together their anomaly team."
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoMeta: From many years of watching various rockets explode, I believe the correct euphemism is "catastrophic departure from controlled flight conditions"
- transfire 11y agoI sat here watching it go up and thought "please don't blow up. please don't blow up." I should have stayed in bed. Sorry all.
- filvdg 11y agoIt looked like the exhaust fumes changed patern and than everything desintegrated ... maybe it autodistructed ... it did not look like it changed direction or anything before the explosion
- JackWebbHeller 11y agoSo what's going to happen to the astronauts aboard the ISS - this was a resupply mission. How much longer can they stay up there with their current supplies?
- mdumic 11y agoRussians can lift anything in matter of days if need be.
- SuperChihuahua 11y agoDidn't a Russian rocket with supplies to ISS explode not long ago? Edit: One exploded in May: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/05/soyuz-2-1a-third-stage-progress-m-27m-iss-changes/ http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/05/soyuz-2-1a-third-stag... It seems like they are going to launch again with supplies to ISS in July
- arrrg 11y agoNot every space flight failure is the result of an explosion. The Progress vehicle did actually enter an orbit (it reached space and was circling the Earth for a couple days), just the wrong one and after that it spun out of control and was no longer controllable from the ground. Since there is still some atmosphere and some drag in low Earth orbit it eventually was slowed down enough to burn up. Basically, it failed because it couldn't be controlled anymore, no explosions involved. (Had it been launched to an higher orbit it may well have stayed up for a long, long time, no explosions or anything else interesting going on, just spinning round and round and being uncontrollable.)
- dgregd 11y agoThis might be just a coincidence. But I have a strange filling that secret services were involved in both cases. How hard is to sabotage Falcon 9 mission?
- whoisthemachine 11y agoYes - they have not seemed to have a good record of getting supplies lately.
- brodo 11y agoHas anyone got a video recording?
- waterlesscloud 11y agoWait, is the banner on SpaceX's YouTube channel really the terraforming of Mars? https://www.youtube.com/user/spacexchannel https://www.youtube.com/user/spacexchannel
- thomasfoster96 11y agoYup, looks like they edited this photo from Wikimedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MarsTransitionV.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MarsTransitionV.jpg
- kristofferR 11y agoIt clearly is. Damn, that's cool! I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Elon Musk had already started thinking seriously about that phase of the colonization project.
- jakebaker 11y agoWhen you walk into their office and go back towards the area where Elon's cubicle is, the same photo of the terraforming transition is blown up on the wall: https://www.flickr.com/photos/44124348109@N01/9848295393 https://www.flickr.com/photos/44124348109@N01/9848295393 Their company mugs also have a heat sensitive image of Mars that terraforms itself: http://shop.spacex.com/accessories-81/occupy-mars-heat-sensitive-terraforming-mug.html http://shop.spacex.com/accessories-81/occupy-mars-heat-sensi... Elon is ::definitely:: already thinking about the colonization phase of the project and has taken steps to highlight it to the company and the public.
- mkempe 11y agoLive broadcast here: http://livestream.com/spacex/events/4152712 http://livestream.com/spacex/events/4152712
- thomasfoster96 11y agoHere if you prefer YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw
- agildehaus 11y agoYouTube stream usually works better and is Chromecastable :)
- danbruc 11y agoExcpet »Live Streaming is not available in your country due to rights issues«.
- Rezo 11y agoThanks, the livestream.com quality looks much better to me than Youtube's despite the latter offering 1080p.
- vonklaus 11y ago>The seventh cargo resupply mission of Dragon to the ISS, also carrying the first International Docking Adapter in the trunk of Dragon, for use in Commercial Crew missions. Are they looking to relight and land today? They usually do for geo or ISS missions.
- Tuna-Fish 11y agoYep, and Of Course I Still Love You is in position. https://igcdn-photos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t51.2885-15/11386494_1452562881712991_551422559_n.jpg https://igcdn-photos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xaf1/t51.28...
- myth_buster 11y agoWhat's usually the timeline and when could we expect the docking? Edit: Go it... Post-Launch Booster Recovery Okay, that's the routine stuff dealt with. I know we're all here to see what happens to the first stage! Following stage separation approximately 3 minutes into the launch, the first stage will manoeuvre and orient itself to conduct a post-mission landing test attempt on an autonomous drone ship named "Of Course I Still Love You". Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3b27hk/rspacex_crs7_official_launch_discussion_updates/ https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3b27hk/rspacex_crs7...
- vlasev 11y agoSince you edited with the first stage landing info, the expected landing is roughly T+9 min.
- Agathos 11y agoThat name... it has Very Little Gravitas Indeed.
- nkoren 11y agoGods, it feels good to see the future finally arrive. It's been a long time coming. Growing up in the 80s, I became quite bitter about the pace of technological change. Sure, personal computers were nifty, but the heroic age of spaceflight was really what the future should've been about. That age had ended with Apollo 17, three years before I was born. Everything since then looked like a shambolic shuffle into a new dark age. One insane coincidence in the late 80s gave me some remarkable perspective on this. I was taking the train down the coast of California, around the horn of Vandenberg Airforce Base. The train was the only place from which civilians could see the Vandenberg Launch Complex, including the SLC-6 Shuttle launch site[1]. Nasa had spent over $4 Billion preparing it for shuttle launches which would never come. The Challenger disaster had ended all hopes for that; the complex had been mothballed and was already starting to rust. Seeing this made my 13-year-old-self angry. I started ranting to the poor gentleman sitting next to me about how my grandmother hand grown up with horses and buggies yet got to see men walking on the moon; my generation, on the other hand, had seen nothing but decline. As I ranted, the gentleman slumped in his seat. At the end of my rant, he gave a long sigh and said "tell me about it." Then he introduced himself. He was Deke Slayton, a Mercury and Apollo astronaut[2]. He'd retired from NASA in 1982, frustrated with its bureaucracy, and tried to start a private space-launch company. It hadn't gone well.[3] I wish I could say that our conversation gave me hope for the future, but it didn't. Later, my hopes were raised by the DC-X[4], then dashed by the subsequent (insanely corrupt) X-33 fiasco, and the failure of Beal Aerospace[5]. Raised again when I stood on the flight line at Mojave and watched SpaceShipOne take its first space shot[6], then dashed again when that program seemed to fly into molasses. Throughout, there was the sense that the future was possible, but by no means inevitable. There was no guarantee that it would arrive in my lifetime. But now here it is. This time it's real, this time it'll work, and nobody will have to get nailed to anything. I couldn't be happier! 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_AFB_Space_Launch_Complex_6#Space_Shuttle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandenberg_AFB_Space_Launch_Co... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deke_Slayton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deke_Slayton 3: https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevefrancis/sets/72157629324639570/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevefrancis/sets/721576293246... 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beal_Aerospace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beal_Aerospace 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne_flight_15P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne_flight_15P
- neals 11y agoElon Musk's 44th birthday today. Crazy way to celebrate that, right: Launching a rocket into space and getting to re-use the rocket.
- batou 11y ago* possibly getting to re-use the rocket. Good luck to everyone involved however; very exciting.
- batou 11y agoDamn now I feel bad for saying that.
- TorKlingberg 11y agoYeah, we all knew the return and landing part is new and uncertain, but I thought they would at least get to try.
- batou 11y agoIndeed. I was looking forward to the landing. I never thought it wouldn't make it to start with. A sad day but you can always learn things from failures so not a complete waste of effort.
- daguava 11y agoNot reusing that one :(
- neals 11y agoAwkwards silence on the livestream... RIP Falcon 9. Still happy birthday Elon, I guess ?
- cosmolev 11y agoHappy birthday Elon! We know you'll do it eventually.
- ColinWright 11y agoOh. Crap. Space really is hard.
- dantheman 11y agoI love watching as many launches as I can it's great!
- dantheman 11y agoA valiant effort! Keep up the good work. Everyone is rooting for your success.
- yoha 11y agovlc http://iphone-streaming.ustream.tv/uhls/6540154/streams/live/iphone/playlist.m3u8 http://iphone-streaming.ustream.tv/uhls/6540154/streams/live...
- dordoka 11y agoIt has exploded! :(
- nothrabannosir 11y agodid it just explode???
- NamTaf 11y agoWell, that was an unexpected and uncontrolled structural disintegration. e: On the upside, happy birthday Elon, I hope you enjoyed your really awesome fireworks!
- NamTaf 11y agoThat has to be the most awkward sign-off of the webcast ever.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI almost felt like I heard that tension in the announcer's voice.
- robzyb 11y agoTension? Or upset-ness?
- neurotech1 11y agoThe SpaceX "announcer" is John Insprucker. He is a senior engineer and Falcon 9 Product Director.
- mtreis86 11y ago"Confirmed we have had a non-nominal flight"
- dabockster 11y ago"Lock the doors"
- danielweber 11y agoMaybe people didn't realize you were referencing the Columbia Shuttle disaster.
- sschueller 11y ago
- scolson 11y agoI was wondering what happened. This was my first time watching the live stream so I wasn't sure if that was normal or not. Edit: They just called it, they had an "anomaly."
- calin2k 11y ago"Non nominal flight"
- orian 11y agoWhat does it mean?
- mitchty 11y agoRapid unplanned disassembly.
- 001sky 11y agoHow did nominal come to mean “within acceptable tolerances”? https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/184876/how-did-nominal-come-to-mean-within-acceptable-tolerances https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/184876/how-did-n... So, it's another way of saying something is 'out of tolerance'.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- cwt137 11y agodid it just blow up?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kid0m4n 11y agoYep... just saw... hate the silence on the stream Update: Looks like the explosion was triggered by Range Control in response to non nominal flight
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kid0m4n 11y agoHope SpaceX bounces back with another launch. They were hoping to get the landing spot on today, and then this happens. I am feeling for the guys on the floor...
- alexggordon 11y agoDo you have a source for that? It's really hard to differentiate between some guy on twitter and some guy that happens to work for SpaceX on twitter.
- facetube 11y agoHoly shit.
- ekianjo 11y agoGone, baby Gone. Too bad... :(
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- sabertoothed 11y agoso sad
- n_coats 11y agoWas just watching the rocket from my backyard and it looked like it exploded... wow, can't believe that.
- n_coats 11y agoI saw two big puffs of smoke and initially thought it was the boosters releasing.
- danbruc 11y agoOn the video it looked to me like a tank ruptured somewhere in the top half of the rocket, probably the second stage, and set free all the fuel. The rocket kept its course for some time until it suddenly disintegrated.
- thearn4 11y agoIt did looks like it was close to the point of stage separation. But we'll see soon what the SpaceX's engineering analysis is.
- nanofortnight 11y agoYes it was close to meco.
- DavidSJ 11y agoThere are no solid rocket boosters on Falcon 9.
- cwt137 11y agoEnd of the live broadcast
- stox 11y agoSo honey, how was the launch today? We had a blast!
- bingobob 11y agoPoor Microsoft HoloLens
- logingone 11y agoWhy don't they eject the cargo as they've tested for crew?
- patrickyeon 11y agoI don't know for sure, but I suspect the (not very extensively tested) launch abort system wouldn't have actually been installed of this flight.
- mikeash 11y agoSpaceX's launch abort system is integral to the Dragon 2 capsule. It's not a bolt-on and couldn't be reasonably retrofitted to Dragon 1.
- sidcool 11y agoI feel very sad. This is second in a row. The guys up there are short on supplies...
- kjson 11y agoit blowd up
- tocs 11y agoI think (of course just an uneducated guess) things were going poorly from the beginning. It just looked slower than usual. Also, it looked like some of the engine exhaust was in places it should not have been several seconds before the "anomaly". I hope they get everything figured out and get back on track soon. Best wished.
- marktangotango 11y agoI noticed that too, seemed slow clearing the tower, I thought it was mo imagination, or the camera angle.
- mikeash 11y agoSame here, but they said the liftoff was nominal so I'm guessing it's either imagination or camera angle. This stuff is really hard to judge from video.
- fbender 11y agoI find all SpaceX launches to be "slow" compared to (some) other launches. But this is mostly due to the Falcon not having any solid rocket motors: These produce a massive amount of thrust (far higher than liquid engines) and thus a high accelerating force right from the beginning. You can see that in e.g. Shuttle launches or the recent Vega launch (all solid motor), compare them to other liquid-only rocket motor launches.
- rhaps0dy 11y agoDo you think you might be having a hindsight bias?
- tocs 11y agoNo, I really thought that. I also thought, all sorts of things so I am not claiming to have some sort of predictive powers. It could easily be camera angles and my expectation of seeing the thing zoom off the pad. Just saw this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24cZYMsdrq0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24cZYMsdrq0) video. It looks like trouble started near the top of the rocket. Also, heard the Air Force Terminated the flight. Anyway, we will see.
- transfire 11y agoIt's never going to work well until we find a way to get to space without lighting our asses on fire.
- amix 11y agoMy thoughts go out to the SpaceX team. Must be devastating to see your hard work blow up :-(
- raverbashing 11y agoWell, it is rocket science, and even though SpaceX has a higher reliability target, accidents do happen
- thearn4 11y agoSpace is certainly hard, even for those that people might assume are good at it (NASA, Roscosmos, etc.). This failure is a likely setback for man-rating the falcon in the future.
- aerovistae 11y agoDoubt 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 a safe landing. There is almost no question that had there been people aboard this particular launch, and they were using the newer Dragon that has that capability, no loss of life would have occurred. Unless (of course) there were OTHER malfunctions, too. Never know. Space is indeed hard.
- italophil 11y agoCan Dragon abort and separate at Max Q? If I recall correctly the Space Shuttle had several flight periods at which it wouldn't have been able to separate from the boosters and / or tank.
- FeepingCreature 11y agoTo my knowledge, Dragon V2 can abort throughout the launch.
- jacquesm 11y agoMan that sucks... At least it wasn't a manned flight yet.
- thecrumb 11y agoBonus points if any of the debris lands on the barge!
- kid0m4n 11y agoThats a mighty tasteless thing to say. I am guessing you are on the "we should not be exploring space" camp?
- abstractbeliefs 11y agoIn what way is it tasteless?
- serf 11y agothis was the failure of a cutting edge rocket that resulted in no loss of human life. How is it tasteless? I'm personally more saddened by the fact that the ISS is getting schedules pushed back than some billion-dollar company lost a rocket. I'm very much pro-space exploration, and I thought it was funny. It's just a tongue-in-cheek joking reference as if this was a huge game of lawn-darts. Lighten up, and stop 'guessing' about what 'camp' people are a part of as part of public discourse. It makes you look rude, presumptive, and (possibly worst of all) wrong.
- whoisthemachine 11y agoLift-off looked normal, seemed like things were going fine. Personally, I noticed a darker piece of material fly off the rocket, and then disintegration. Will be interesting to hear the reason/root cause.
- dEnigma 11y agoTo quote xkcd: "You will not go to space today"
- knrdev 11y agoFirst time i watch SpaceX launch. Rocket explodes. Disappointed.
- xur17 11y agoIt exploded :(. Link to that part of the livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw&t=23m38s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw&t=23m38s
- LesZedCB 11y agoDoes anybody have a way to watch the video again? I'm curious to watch it again now that I know what happened. I haven't watched many launches before so I didn't know if what was happening was routine or not. Though, admittedly, it was weird that one second there was a rocket, then the next there was only debris... edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw&t=23m38s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw&t=23m38s Thanks xur17!
- alexggordon 11y agoHere's a second[0] video in case the first one goes down. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNymhcTtSQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuNymhcTtSQ
- Seanambers 11y agoBased on that, one can clearly see by stepping frame by frame at 3:20 disintergration of what i imagine must be second stage fueltanks. Difficult to say if it is oxygen or kerosene, but since its expanding so rapidly it would seem likely that its a oxygen tank. But nevertheless its just guessing from me and im no expert.
- xur17 11y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw&t=23m38s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw&t=23m38s And the NasaTV stream is still going with updates: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/
- AYBABTME 11y agoI'm very saddened at this event, it makes me worry about how future launches will go. Will their customers agree for them to add landing legs to their future missions? Will their manned flights be delayed? How about their certification to launch for the USAF. Also I'm not sure but, did I see the Dragon spacecraft eject?
- fbender 11y ago1) They will assess the failure, maybe change some elements minimally, and launch again. It does not look like they'll go out of business anytime soon, and that would be the only reason not to try it again and again. 2) The legs have nothing to do with it, based on what we know (and it's very unlikely, too). Manned flight certification could be impacted, e.g. assessment period will be extended, but insignificantly (assuming they find a cause and the next launches go well). USAF certification will probably not be impacted since they reached the minimum amount of successful flights (assuming there are no other rules like "no launch failure in last X flights"). 3) No, the rocket was probably terminated, i.e. explosives fired to break up the malfunctioning rocket. So you probably saw the debris.
- ash 11y agoVideo of explosion, from 23:40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw&t=23m40s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiBFtkrZEw&t=23m40s
- TimWolla 11y agoThis one is blocked in Germany, here is another one that works: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9793679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9793679
- kid0m4n 11y agoI always wondered why?
- th0br0 11y agoYouTube cannot assure that no GEMA-licensed content is played during the live streams. To avoid a battle with GEMA here, they decided to ban it.
- Mithaldu 11y agoProxflow can unblock that in Chrome.
- userbinator 11y agoIt appears they have cameras on the outside and inside the rocket... I'd like to see what video they captured of the explosion.
- mholt 11y agoAnd a different angle from NASA TV: http://www.floridatoday.com/videos/tech/science/space/spacex/2015/06/28/29423515/ http://www.floridatoday.com/videos/tech/science/space/spacex...
- zhrvoj 11y agoIt can be seen frame by frame that explosion fumes started at the top of the rocket.
- AYBABTME 11y agoI'm very saddened at this event, it makes me worry about how future launches will go. Will their customers agree for them to add landing legs to their future missions? Will their manned flights be delayed? How about their certification to launch for the USAF. Also I'm not sure but, did I see the Dragon spacecraft eject?
- jerf 11y agoSo, the advantage of a weekend launch is that I could show my kids (boys 7 & 4), right? Facepalm. In the last few minutes, over a dozen K-Nex rockets have lifted off and exploded shortly after takeoff. Sigh. Not the best introduction to the second Space Age for them.... ah well, we'll try again later. At least nobody was aboard.
- jonkiddy 11y agoI had my 3 kids watching along with me. Afterwards we had a healthy talk on how to approach failure.
- nicholasjon 11y agoYup, my two kids here watched with me. Afterwards we talked about how difficult it is to do some things in life, and how we should keep trying even when things don't go our way.
- gus_massa 11y agoAn important lesson for the kids is that cutting edge technology is hard. Rocket science is hard. Like a 10% chance of explosions in an unmanned flight and a 2% chance of explosion in a manned flight chance hard. (Protip: Only put the humans in the safer rockets, and be sure that they are going to so something useful up there, and anyway explain them that this is dangerous.) Probably in 20, 50 or 100 years this will be as safe as current planes, but today it's a dangerous task.
- daphreak 11y agoNot sure SpaceX rockets count as cutting edge technology. They are based on rather mature technology developed by NASA. This does highlight the difficulty of manufacturing a complex system in small quantities without the opportunity to do an end to end test before use.
- hga 11y agoEh, developed by/for the Air Force, e.g. the mid-50s Jupiter used RP-1/LOX. For that matter, Mercury and Gemini used Army and Air Force rockets for boosters, it wasn't until Apollo that they used purpose built civilian rockets. The gas-generator design of the rocket engines goes back at least to the mid-50s in the USSR, not sure when it was first used in the US, but various Saturn rockets developed for Apollo used that design. They're using cutting edge stuff here and there, e.g. friction stir welding, which is a good match for the long seams in boosters, but mostly its organizational, and clean slate, not starting with a military rocket which is developed for and under different constraints. Or explicitly (Apollo) or implicitly (Space Shuttle and beyond) as a public works project, where cost is secondary to employing a lot of people.
- 51Cards 11y agoSo in a case like this, would it be possible to have the pad abort system kick in? It could potentially pull the cargo module away and make an attempt to parachute it back for recovery? I doubt it could overcome the speed of the rocket but it might have a chance to separate it from the debris cloud?
- bmiranda 11y agoCargo dragon doesn't have a pad abort system. Dragon 2 would be able to escape just fine, though. Cargo dragon could _technically_ survive if didn't get blown up too much.
- gus_massa 11y agoFrom the PR (and early test) angle: Is it possible to add the escape mechanism the cargo version? Perhaps this has no economical sense, but after the explosion it's better to write: "The main rocket suffered a RUD, the mission is canceled, but Buster would have survived."
- fbender 11y agoThe Launch Abort System (LAS) is heavy, and since it requires Dragon V2, which includes more systems only required for human missions, the overall system mass is even higher than "just" the LAS. Heavy is extremely expensive, ergo it does not make sense economically to equip the cargo version with the LAS. Simply said, the chance of failure multiplied with the cost of the cargo is less than the extra cost an LAS on every mission would mean.
- david-given 11y agoAlthough, given that rocket launch failure is a fact of life anyway, then putting the LAS on unmanned payloads means you get a much higher chance of testing it for real. Which means you have a much higher chance of knowing whether it'll work when you are in the Dragon it's attached to, which I reckon is a good thing. Also, I thought the whole point of the Dragon v2 launch escape system was it uses the engines and fuel already in Dragon for orbital manoeuvring and landing; even the unmanned version is going to be using that. So it shouldn't be that heavy.
- doguozkan 11y agoWhat are the implications of this for SpaceX in monetary terms? Can they just shrug this failure off?
- yoha 11y agoFailures are expected. This is not catastrophic, although it would have been nice if they had the opportunity to try a return to barge.
- rorykoehler 11y agoCan anyone here with a little more knowledge answer the following please? Who pays for the expense of these types of failures? Does SpaceX have some sort of 3rd party insurance from a private insurer or are they insured by NASA or another branch of the US gov? How much is the equipment that got destroyed worth? If this happens multiple times in a short space of time as it seems to have recently does the cost of insurance go up for every launch? Does their analysis of data have any impact of the cost of insuring future launches?
- engi_nerd 11y agoBoth SpaceX and Orbital ATK carry insurance policies on their ISS resupply launches to protect against this sort of thing, although the policies are not absolutely comprehensive (Orbital's policy had a bothersome gap related to damages caused to the launch facility, owned by a third party). I do not know what the SpaceX vehicle's cost is, but I do know that the Antares rocket that Orbital ATK lost last year was itself valued at ~$200 million USD.
- mikeash 11y agoAccording to the One True Reliable Source of All Knowledge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Resupply_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Resupply_Services), SpaceX got $1.6 billion for 12 resupply missions, so that's about $133 million for the Falcon 9, the Dragon, and all the work involved in shooting them into space. I have no clue what their profit margin would be on that, but that at least gives us an upper limit.
- rorykoehler 11y agoEvery failed launch must be very painful. There doesn't seem to be much margin for error at those figures.
- engi_nerd 11y agoLaunch 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 complete launch vehicle failure (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL9HEYuOWDU#t33m25s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL9HEYuOWDU#t33m25s). The stress of investigating that caused four of the telemetry/power engineers working on that mission to quit within the several months following.
- MichaelMoser123 11y agoGood that nobody was hurt. that reminds me that Elon Musk said that Antares rockets are junk, so now his own spacecrafts are exploding. Space tech has its problems. Maybe that will teach him to be a bit more humble. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/10/iss-bound-gear-experiemnts-lost-in-antares-explosion-space-xs-elon-musk-called-the-rockets-outdated-.html http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/10/iss-bound-gear-...
- whoisthemachine 11y agoI agree - even if what he said had some merit - it's never a good idea to trash your competitors on technical matters when what you are doing is really hard.
- myth_buster 11y agoI won't jump so fast to shame him. There was reason why he said Antares was junk. From the initial report, the falcon self destructed due to non-nominal path. Which ain't same thing though same outcome.
- Osmium 11y agoI think that article might be a bit disingenuous. Elon Musk didn't say that in response to the Antares explosion, he said it several years earlier, and the part that's quoted is pretty accurate to be fair. When a failure does happen, nobody goes around celebrating it, whether they're competitors or not, and honestly I believe that includes Elon Musk. I believe that on a human level, but even on a business level it's bad, because it reduces public faith in space transportation generally. Nobody likes to see this happen. :(
- lutorm 11y agoHe did express sympathy for Orbital's failure: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/527247155954610176 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/527247155954610176
- Sami_Lehtinen 11y agoIsn't 180 seconds just the burn time of first stage? So it's when 2nd stage should fire?
- thomasrossi 11y agoI remember as a kid playing buzz aldrin's race into space I was fascinated by the exploding rockets. Now that I better realize the cost, no more fascinated. Trial and error has its costs
- daguava 11y agoI would rather see SpaceX fail a thousand times unmanned than once with astronauts aboard: this is all part of progress forward.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- satyajeet23 11y ago“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
- taf2 11y agoThe challenge will be convincing people like the ULA backers from this hearing: http://youtu.be/IWVZYKGTenE http://youtu.be/IWVZYKGTenE that this is not a sign of spacex being less reliable because it is significantly less cost. My hope is spacex can bounce back.
- satyajeet23 11y agoSpaceX and NASA is continuing to evaluate. Live coverage: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
- baggers 11y agoT+15m NASA TV says flight was terminated by Air Force, but does not state reason http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3b27hk/rspacex_crs7_official_launch_discussion_updates/ http://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3b27hk/rspacex_crs7_...
- 32faction 11y agogif of explosion: http://imgur.com/SYwUIbI http://imgur.com/SYwUIbI
- vonklaus 11y ago"Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts" - winston chruchill
- benihana 11y agoCrazy how little actual conflagration there is. I would have expected a big fireball when that much RP-1 and LOX explodes. I mean the entire second stage's fuel exploded. Edit: Here's a Titan 1, which was fueled with RP-1 and LOX exploding on the pad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBzigaTSPZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBzigaTSPZY
- userbinator 11y agoIt was 45km in the sky when it exploded. Not much oxygen up there to react with, and most of the fuel would've scattered quickly too due to the forces involved.
- lotu 11y agoThere were pretty close to Main Engine Cutoff so there would have been relatively little fuel left.
- greglindahl 11y agoIt was fueled for a landing, which means 30% extra in the first stage.
- TrevorJ 11y agoTank exploded but I don't think it ignited. The rapid breakup you see is due to the air pressure forces at that speed most likely.
- bendtheblock 11y agoA complete coincidence, I was just watching these worst rocket malfunctions [1] then flicked over to HN and this was #1 story. Initial thoughts are that the main difference is now we have HD video and for some reason the controllers remain silent after the explosion... Why the silence? There used to be at least some reaction from the controllers. From an "oh no" to "obviously a major malfunction"... no sh*t Sherlock... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6qJh9upqW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6qJh9upqW8
- engi_nerd 11y ago> Initial thoughts are that the main difference is now we have HD video and for some reason the controllers remain silent after the explosion When something like this happens, all the conversations about what happened are being held on comm nets that aren't broadcast. Believe me, the controllers are talking to each other, gathering and sequestering data, etc. But they aren't doing it on the net that's broadcast to the public.
- moioci 11y agoThis is the natural consequence of testing being so expensive that you _have_ to test in production.
- satyajeet23 11y agoElon Musk Tweeted: There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause.
- cloudwalking 11y agoElon: "There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause." https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/615185076813459456 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/615185076813459456
- 51Cards 11y agoFrom Elon just now via Twitter: "There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause. That's all we can say with confidence right now. Will have more to say following a thorough fault tree analysis."
- myth_buster 11y agoReceived telemetry from Dragon after the event - Gwynne (From Conference). Bit of positive news to take from this sad day.
- 51Cards 11y agoYeah, it is too bad there wasn't some way to deploy the parachute system manually. It would be nice if the cargo could be saved.
- myth_buster 11y agoI think Gerstenmaier was saying that may be a distant possibility.
- will_hughes 11y agoWhile they might be able to recover the items, re-qualifying something that's been dunked in seawater after being dropped from 35km+ is probably a non-trivial task. That's assuming it wasn't exposed to explosion debris.
- Havoc 11y ago>Data suggests counterintuitive cause. What does this sentence mean?
- greglindahl 11y agoIt means that the cause was surprising, not one that your intuition would think of.
- UnoriginalGuy 11y agoI feel bad for the SpaceX team. No sympathy for Musk considering all the mean spirited and unfair things he's said publicly about Orbital Sciences' rockets (inc. "One of our competitors, Orbital Sciences, has a contract to resupply the International Space Station, and their rocket honestly sounds like the punch line to a joke. It uses Russian rocket engines that were made in the '60s. I don’t mean their design is from the '60s -- I mean they start with engines that were literally made in the '60s and, like, packed away in Siberia somewhere."). Which is an even more ironic quote if you knew that Musk tried to buy exactly those same rockets from Russia and was declined[0]. Hopefully Musk is learning some humility. [0] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3082067/Russian-space-bosses-SPAT-Elon-Musk-tried-buy-rocket-persuading-build-new-book-reveals.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3082067/Russi...
- adanto6840 11y agoInteresting, I didn't know that. I was intrigued enough that I had to look up the original quote[0] as I had my doubts. I was able to easily find it though, is from a 10/12/2012 interview with Wired. Perhaps he's gained some humility since then; I'm still very inspired by him regardless... [0] http://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/ http://www.wired.com/2012/10/ff-elon-musk-qa/
- userbinator 11y ago"They don't build them like they used to."
- anotherangrydev 11y ago"Bind your tongue or your tongue will have you bound"
- FeepingCreature 11y agoEngines don't appear to have been the problem.
- transfire 11y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rRZdiu1UE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rRZdiu1UE
- satai 11y agoAFAIK only three launch vehicles have better count of starts before the first big acident: Space Shuttle, Soyuz and Delta II.
- solomatov 11y agoIt's absolutely ok to have failures during rocket development. See statistics of American and Russian rockets at the dawn of space race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight-related_ac... I wish the best SpaceX and hope they will make space flight affordable for many commercial and consumer applications.
- toomuchfire 11y agoSo, we have explosive rockets, the burning teslas, and soon the batteries - how will they fare?
- jpetersonmn 11y agoHow many teslas started on fire? How many of them were not modified by their owners? How many have they sold in total?
- codeulike 11y agoExactly. Over 67,000 Tesla Model S's have been delivered since 2012. Over a billion miles have been driven in them. I've heard of 3 or 4 fires. (source for delivery stats: http://my.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/tesla-delivers-10030-vehicles-q1-2015 http://my.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/tesla-delivers-10030-... source for billion miles http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/23/tesla-model-s-owners-drive-1-billion-miles/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/23/tesla-model-s-owners-driv... )
- ceejayoz 11y agoAlso relevant: how many gasoline-powered cars catch fire every day (lots), and how many Tesla fires injured their occupants (zero)?
- rimantas 11y agoLots? Only in movies.
- shiftpgdn 11y agoI live in a major city and we have freeway closures due to vehicle fires on a near daily basis. Most recently a truck full of bread caught on fire and resulted in one of the cities most major arteries being closed both ways for 4+ hours.
- Anchor 11y ago"more than 150,000 annually, which kill some 209 civilians every year" http://www.businessinsider.com/17-cars-catch-on-fire-every-hour-in-the-us-2013-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/17-cars-catch-on-fire-every-h...
- Osmium 11y agoLooks 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/ http://www.engadget.com/2015/06/27/meteor-camera-iss/
- justizin 11y agoNeat to hear about SwRI still doing space work. My grandfather was the director of engineering for many years, and I learned to program in BASIC on a 286 that he brought home when he retired. I get the impression looking back that he worked on so many projects he didn't have time to tell us about many.
- Thorondor 11y agoThe press conference is being broadcast live now (1 PM ET). http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/
- codeulike 11y agoJust watched some of it. The SpaceX COO just said they're still analysing data s dont have anything to add to Elon's tweets yet. The rest of the conference is just reassuring everyone that the ISS is fine for the time being.
- adanto6840 11y agoPress conference just started, YouTube live stream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyMOYHiatos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyMOYHiatos
- FrankenPC 11y agoMy only question is, is the real time telemetry at a high enough resolution that the exact cause of the explosion can be ferreted out? I'm guessing yes. This is another very important learning experience. One of countless thousands on the way to reliable space launch and recovery. My only pessimistic thought in all this is that companies like Space X simply do not have the funds necessary to keep absorbing catastrophic loss and will just give up.
- pbreit 11y agoSpaceX at this point is pretty well-funded, still in a solid position to tap capital markets and has a healthy manifest of paying customer launches. There's probably some insurance in place to mitigate financial losses. And this is the benefit of bringing costs down, especially with the complete complete re-use SpaceX is targeting.
- FrankenPC 11y agoReminds me of that article about the Sony Aibo dogs ending their mechanical end of life. After 16 years, they are failing and they're no replacement parts. Point being, if Sony had kept going with that incredibly sophisticated robotics tech (for the time) they would be an industry leader right now at a time when robotics is about to explode. Did Sony run out of funds? No. They abandoned the project because of fear for stockholder repercussions. That's what I meant by that comment. Sometimes stockholder flash back is enough to abandon a really great idea.
- noobie 11y agoRIP Jebediah Kerman.
- ytdht 11y agohttp://rowvid.com/?v=PuNymhcTtSQ&t=200&s=1 http://rowvid.com/?v=PuNymhcTtSQ&t=200&s=1
- ChuckMcM 11y agoBummer. Telemetry will be useful and of course. I doubt it will de-rail SpaceX. Several interesting questions came to mind though, especially given the successful test of the Dragon 2's thrusters, which is whether or not an inflight abort could have saved the cargo. I understand that isn't practical in the general case but in the specific case of a Dragon cargo capsule, I'm wondering if they can fly one with the super draco thrusters. And have that one do the in flight abort sequence at some point in the future. And given a rocket at mach 1+ what is the velocity of the explosion wavefront? In particular if you know that the back end of the rocket has just exploded, how many milliseconds do you have before the shockwave catches up to the front of the rocket? Could you perform a disconnect and burn of the super draco package to put the Dragon capsule far enough ahead of the shock wave to survive it?
- eps 11y agoHold 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?
- hackuser 11y agoThis article says they have food and supplies through October. If I'm on ISS, maybe I start skipping lunch now. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-destroyed-in-launch-mishap/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-destroyed...
- hackuser 11y agoCosts 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-in-launch-mishap/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/spacex-falcon-9-rocket-destroyed...
- solomatov 11y ago>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.
- hackuser 11y agoTrue. Also don't forget the opportunity cost of the time lost: 1) building a replacement and waiting for a spare slot in which to launch it, 2) engineering, manufacturing, and other resources which could have been used for (and likely were planned for) something else, but now are used for the replacement, and 3) the project the asset was used for, and its output (revenue, research results, etc.), now put on hold. Many organizations don't have the spare time and capacity to afford all of that; they or their project may simply be done.
- fbender 11y agoKeep in mind that several copies of a satellite will be built during production. Some are mockups of a few subsystems (e.g. structure), some are used for tests (e.g. thermal, electrical, interference), often there's also a "flight spare" which is an exact copy of the satellite in case something goes wrong with the flight hardware (e.g. broken during testing, launch failure). E.g. Curiosity has such a spare (I'm not sure if it's the same as the flight hardware or close enough) which will be sent in a future mission (I think 2017, though I don't have any sources at hand) with (some) different experiments on board.
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- jedikv 11y agoSpaceX - making the world's most expensive bottle rockets
- dcposch 11y agoI watched the launch live this morning. It reminded me of one of the best interviews ever. Elon Musk after SpaceX's first three launches all exploded: http://archive.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/08/musk_qa http://archive.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/08/musk_qa I read that in high school, and it's part of the reason I became an engineer. "Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." --Teddy Roosevelt
- Edmeral 11y ago"Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work." I got goose bumps reading Elon's response at the end of the article.
- dwightgunning 11y agoFor me it's the honest follow up about patience that says most.
- ctdonath 11y agoThe thing I like most about the startup I work for: if anything goes wrong, everyone just objectively addresses what happened, where we are now, and what to do to move forward - an obsessive focus on the next step to success.
- nhstanley 11y ago"Why did you want to climb Mount Everest?" "Because it's there. Everest is the highest mountain in the world, and no man has reached its summit. Its existence is a challenge. The answer is instinctive, a part, I suppose, of man's desire to conquer the universe." - George Mallory
- Retric 11y agoThat's a great reason to be the first to climb Everest, but it seems lacking to be the 4,000th.
- akhilpo 11y agoIndia's ISRO sent a mars mission for around $70 million. That was including the payload i think. How is $60 million cheap for just a launch vehicle?
- PieterCVoges 11y agoJust wondering... Why don't they use the new V2 Dragon with it's escape/abort system in all future resupply missions? At least they should be able to save the very expensive lab supply equipment, instruments, experiments, etc. Just fit it with the current V1 Dragon attach system for ISS docking.