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 the upper stage oxygen tank and occurred during propellant loading of the vehicle. Per standard operating procedure, all personnel were clear of the pad and there were no injuries.
We are continuing to review the data to identify the root cause. Additional updates will be provided as they become available." [2]
Rocketry is hard... And very unforgiving.
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.
Less glib, I'm not so sure. In shed development, you spend a lot to make perfect things. Aston Martin or Rolls Royce are great examples of this. In factory development, you spend a lot to make perfect systems. I'd hold up Toyota or Honda as good examples.
I'm not an expert in SpaceX technology, but i thought their big supposed advantage was tons of automation. With bespoke development, it's tough to bring down the failure rate. you just keep testing and verifying more. With a defined system, you fix the system to avoid those errors.
There's obviously a spectrum, and SpaceX isn't that far out on the automation scale, but i do think that's the intention. If they can survive long enough to reap those benefits, their launches will be cheaper and more reliable. In the mean time, lots of cheap, risky, attempts are probably better for debugging than thinking real hard and building the perfect thing.
Rocket technology has never advanced without catastrophic failures. "Breaking things" is the only way forward with it. Rockets, of necessity, have to push designs to their limits, or they'll never lift off the pad.
It seems like building and launching a rocket that doesn't explode every 14th time is possible but its not cheap. The US has been doing it since the 60's. SpaceX may turn out to be OK for delivering Tang to the ISS, but let's let something else carry the Webb into orbit.
* 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 had fewer than 30 seconds of fuel left when it finally touched down.
* Apollo 12 was struck by lightning as it left the launch pad, knocking out much of the electrical system, which had to be reset. Fortunately they built things robustly.
* Apollo 13 had an oxygen tank explode as it was en route to the moon. The mission was aborted, though orbital mechanics meant that the astronauts still had to orbit the Moon, then return to Earth.
Any of 11, 12, or 13 could have ended with fatalities. One scenario for the command module pilot (Michael Collins in Apollo 11) was, if needs be, to leave his two crew members on the lunar surface and to return to Earth alone.
Yeah, they were really outsize personalities in every way (in a good way). Very unique time in American history.
> During the braking phase, up to the time the landing radar locked onto the surface, the duty-cycle margin was over 15%. After the radar acquired, the extra computations involved in converting the body-referenced radar data to the navigation coordinate system lowered the margin to perhaps 13%. When a monitor display such as Verb 16 Noun 68 was added, the margin shrank again, to 10% or less. Buzz Aldrin was perceptive when he said after the second 1202 alarm, "It appears to come up when we have a 1668 up"[16].
> With a 10% margin and a 13% drain, the LGC simply did not have enough CPU time to perform all the functions that were required. Thanks to the flexibility of the Executive design — and quite unlike what would have happened with a boxcar structure — there was no collapse.
[...]
> Having a relatively low priority because of its size, SERVICER got last crack at the available computation time. With a negative time margin it was SERVICER that had not yet reached its conclusion when the next READACCS, running punctually, scheduled SERVICER again. Because it had not reached its end, the earlier SERVICER had not released its core set and VAC area — so the next time READACCS called FINDVAC to schedule SERVICER the Executive assigned a new core set and VAC area. That SERVICER also did not finish. After a short span of such operation the Executive exhausted its supply of core sets and/or VAC areas. When the next request was made the Executive, unable to comply, called BAILOUT with a 1201 or 1202 alarm code.
[...]
> The interesting effect of this train of events, during P63, was that the problem fixed itself. The software restart reconstructed only the most recent incarnation of the SERVICER job, and flushed the uncompleted SERVICER "stubs" that had accumulated. In addition, it terminated functions that had not been restart protected because they were not deemed critical — including the DELTAH monitor Verb 16 Noun 68. This is why, following the two alarms in P63, the display returned from Noun 68 to Noun 63.
[...]
> During P64 the situation was different. Added to the regular guidance equations was new processing that provided the capability to redesignate the landing site. With this addition, the essential software by itself left a duty-cycle margin of less than 10%. The alarms kept coming. There were three 1201 and 1202 alarms within 40 seconds. Each time, the software restart flushed the Executive queue but could not shed load.
> At MET 102:43:08, forestalling the next alarm, Armstrong switched the autopilot from AUTO to ATT HOLD mode, easing the computational burden, and then entered semi-manual mode P66, where the burden was still lighter. After 2 minutes and 20 seconds spent maneuvering in P66 without alarms, the LM landed.
I've read his reference before and my reaction to his reply to me was "Yeah, that's right, too."
They did build things robustly back when the US still had a manned space program. I wonder how well a SpaceX rocket would do if it was struck by lightning as it left the pad.
Then again, Apollo 11 couldn't land on a barge. However it could land on the moon with two humans on board and then take off again and return then safely to earth. 47 years ago.
(I'm being a little vague because I can't immediately turn up that reference, I'll take a look for it.)
The upshot is that if you've got a base incident / accident / failure rate, you can predict with a fairly high degree of accuracy the likelihood of major accidents -- fatalities, major injuries, or catastrophic to plant and equipment.
(Now to see if I can find that.)
Here: H. W. Heinrich, Industrial accident prevention: a scientific approach (1959)
The publication date is later than I'd thought, but the data were collected much earlier -- 1931.
https://www.worldcat.org/title/industrial-accident-preventio...
Which I'd originally turned up ... through a NASA accidents presentation: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codeq/accident/accident.pdf
Pre-launch was covered by a different policy.
A brain surgery can result in worse still: like, surgeon performs a surgery, makes some mistake, the patient is alive and gets up and goes home, but due to the surgical damage caused becomes a serial killer.
So, strictly speaking a brain surgery can also result in a body count that is greater than 1.
Respectfully submitted.
I wonder if there is a surgeon who's that skilled.
See "Liston's most famous case"...
But it still must burn a hole in Musk's pocket.
Check your privilege, Superman. Here's some ideas for you http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2305
[1] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1127274-REG/nikon_264...
Its big weakness is autofocus speed (making it useless for birders, etc.)
In my experience the autofocus speed in daylight is fine and it's especially good at focusing on what you want it to focus on, so it's great for birders. The problem is noise-reduction i.e. image quality. Do a bit of pixel peeping and it begins to look like a watercolor painting.
I was lucky enough to get one the day it was released early last year. Fun toy, and great for travel/sightseeing where you often can't use your feet as a zoom, but not even close to 1" type sensor quality let alone SLR.
Saving my pennies for a Sony RX10 III 24-600mm equiv superzoom, thought it's roughly 3 times the price of the P900. Good review here: https://youtu.be/Ad1JDfmyNxI
Edit: Helps if I multiply properly. 12 seconds * 340m/s == 4080m.
Using the "Image = FL * Obj / distance" equation, we get:
.8 * 24mm = x * 70m/4080m
Where x is the focal length of the lens assuming a full frame camera.
This comes out to a x = 1119mm equivalent focal length. If you have a crop sensor, this isn't too hard to obtain. I'd be amused if the video was taken with a Canon EF 1200mm lens or something, but the probability of that is 0.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos-6
The shot is totally within the capabilities of a 200 mm Schmidt–Cassegrain in good seeing, which is not very bulky and could sit comfortably on a medium-to-large size tripod.
The theoretical linear resolving power of that aperture at 5 km is 12 mm. But in practice it will be several times worse.
This is all napkin-based math, I've no clue what optics were used for the shot. Might have been a compact 150 mm apochromat refractor - still capable of enough theoretical resolution, and possibly a more popular option (though more expensive) in practice.
[Edit] Pre and Post explosion: http://imgur.com/a/IIzg2
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.
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...
:-)
:-)
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.
pip install youtube-dl
p.s. skip forward to 1m21s to see AMOS-6 burn (in case you dislike facebook _very_ much).
What's exploding in the first boom and what in the second?
Then, about 12 seconds in, the "nose" is falling down and causing a 3rd explosion. Why hasn't the nose "co-exploded" already with the 1st or 2nd explosion?
The 'nose' falling is payload and its protective fairing. The idea of a fairing is to protect the the satellite from aerodynamic, heat and acoustic stress. It explodes because the satellite has propellant in it - certainly for its rcs system for attitude adjustment and station keeping, and it might have a main engine to help it reach orbit.
First explosion related to second stage (upper). Second explosion related to first stage's fuel igniting (I was expecting some much bigger, but likely there was already little oxygen left in that area and why it burned for so long. Third Explosion was the satellite's internal fuel (Hydrazine or something like it) detonating due to the fall damage and contact with the rest of the flame.
This video is also insanely high quality. Thanks!
1:23 you can see the sat fairing fall from the stack, and then a secondary explosion when it hits the ground (presumably sat propellant)
3:24 second explosion with a fairly fast projectile coming out the top. Any clue as to what that is?
It is important to note that the deluge functioned to protect the launch vehicle from sound vibrational damage, not the pad.
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 launch tower get charred black, that's the fire protective paint.
It's not really possible to fight rocket fuel fires, just mitigate the damage.
It'd certainly suck to be one of the people who's slaved over the satellite for the last couple of years, to see your baby get blown to smithereens like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ#t=1m10s