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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
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The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
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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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.