Update on Falcon 9 explosion
NASA and SpaceX have released detailed statements about Thursday’s Falcon 9 launchpad explosion, summarizing what is known at the moment as well as the state of the investigation.
Not surprisingly, the failure will cause delays in SpaceX’s upcoming plans as well as force the company to shift launches to a different launchpad that will not be ready until November.
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NASA and SpaceX have released detailed statements about Thursday’s Falcon 9 launchpad explosion, summarizing what is known at the moment as well as the state of the investigation.
Not surprisingly, the failure will cause delays in SpaceX’s upcoming plans as well as force the company to shift launches to a different launchpad that will not be ready until November.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I am hearing comments about the explosion like “I saw the video and it appears that something, possibly a drone, hit the rocket before it exploded”.
Dick previously commented that he thought that anything that might have been seen may well have been a closer to the camera substantial Florida bred flying bug rather than a projectile or drone, which seems the more reasonable explanation about any such observation.
I am sure its too early for any concrete reason to be identified.
Cotour–
-totally on-board with your thought(s)!
I’m seeing way too many armchair-experts on the ‘net “discover” stuff from the video. (and I can’t stand it when people re-edit the reality of digital recording, and re-sync the sound up, as-if the camera & microphone weren’t miles away.)
It’s a good video to plaster all over the web as click-bait, but the camera was a long way away, and although if might actually be shot at 60 fps, the resolution just isn’t there. Even if it was high-resolution to start, it’s been compressed to death into .mp4 format video, transmitted over the ‘net, and delivered to everyone’s exceedingly low-resolution computer-monitors.
They should have (at least some) technical-camera views of important stuff, but we’ll just have to wait until the post mortem is done to actually know anything of value.
(I’d also echo what Dick said about the indigenous insects in Florida.)
Wayne-
Using the time tested method to gauge the distance of lightning by counting “one,one thousand, two,one thousand” between the event and the arrival of the sound while watching the original video I guessed the camera was a little less than two miles from the pad.
My experience with rockets is limited to the kind sold by Estes.
But this guy has a take on it you might find interesting.
I proudly introduce: “The Grunt of Monte Cristo” and his opinion on the
https://gruntofmontecristo.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/not-my-fault-this-time/
posted 9-2-16
UPDATE: The possibility of sabotage didn’t occur to me for over a day, mostly because my opinion of SPACE X and its founder and their high level of arrogance (which is toxic in the launch business) made me think this was a screw-up related to their use of a super-dense/cold LOX oxidizer. But after being asked about it a few times, I’m ashamed to admit this might be an obvious explosive device.
MORE including a video; clickey de linkey.
Speculation is fun, reading it is still pretty fun, but really no one has access to the information necessary for good speculation on this one. Some people might be skilled enough to analyze a video but they still wont have much to go on if they aren’t working for SpaceX.
It sucks but we just have to wait and see what the investigation says.
Here is wet dress rehearsal without payload installed.
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/08/25/atlas-5-rocket-rehearses-countdown-for-upcoming-launch-to-asteroid-bennu/
Related to space:
Wow, check this out.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3774604/Philae-Rosetta-s-lost-lander-spotted-comet-67P-just-weeks-probe-s-suicide-mission.html
Cotour– good job spotting that article. (amazing!) that might qualify for elevation to the front page!
wodun– ditto on that thought.
PeterF– thanks. I always forget the multiplier on that. (flash vs. sound arrival)
Gene Shipp–
–I’m no chemist, but the Grunt of Monte Cristo, has a few factoids wrong as it relates to LOX burning, exploding, or detonating.
–Rockets are tricky-business, it’s amazing when they fail, but the more amazing factoid is “they don’t fail more often,” which is a credit to rocket-science.
–totally tangential–was checking on the ‘net for Estes rockets a few weeks ago. Yow, the price has escalated greatly since I last played with them, and it now costs like $28 + postage, for shipping “hazardous” rocket-engines.
“my opinion of SPACE X and its founder and their high level of arrogance (which is toxic in the launch business)”
Interesting you say this, since I am good friends with people involved with ULA. SpaceX makes them nervous (which is obvious from how they have been responding in their business actions). That’s because SpaceX doesn’t have a trillion layers of bureaucracy and they don’t design to six-sigma.
I suppose you can call that arrogance. We used to call it engineering.