Comments on: SpaceX announces completion of investigation of July 11 Falcon 9 second stage failure

By: James Street

James Street — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 14:42:01 +0000

I don’t always test my code, but when I do I do it in production.
https://x.com/chrismaddern/status/565925512250662912/photo/1

By: Edward

Edward — Sat, 27 Jul 2024 03:47:39 +0000

David Eastman asked: “If there was no safety hazard as you just acknowledged, why did [the FAA] order the vehicle grounded, hmmm?”

NASASpaceFlight has a video on the FAA’s role in this kind of investigation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU-hKxKUrxY (17 minutes: “Why Can’t Falcon 9 Fly?”)

John Galloway lists several reasons why the FAA would get involved and checks-off which reasons don’t apply, a couple that might, and a couple that he thinks do apply to give the FAA its involvement. He also reminds us, at the end, [Spoiler Alert? Maybe?] of what Robert tells us: The FAA has some limited knowledge of spaceflight problems, but they don’t know the rocket, so SpaceX does the investigation on its own rocket and reports its findings to the FAA.

[Real Spoiler]
Galloway believes that these two reasons for why the FAA would get involved apply to the failed launch:
√ Unplanned permanent loss of the vehicle.
√ Failure to complete a launch or reentry as planned.

By: David Ross

David Ross — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 19:00:14 +0000

Ray Van Dune – “nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of a hanging in the morning”.
This is one case where the FAA did its job. Something went wrong, FAA demanded an answer, an answer came forth, FAA checked the maths.

By: Ray Van Dune

Ray Van Dune — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 14:16:39 +0000

I don’t doubt their explanation of how the failure occurred, but I am baffled by how this was deduced!

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 07:14:19 +0000

In reply to Richard M. Richard M: While making money at the same time.

By: Richard M

Richard M — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 07:04:41 +0000

Once again, Starlink shows its utility to SpaceX in a new way: It provides a way for SpaceX to rapidly recover from a failure by launching its own payloads to demonstrate to outside clients that its rocket is safe to fly on once again, without endangering those outside payloads, or having to fly a useless mass simulator.

By: David Eastman

David Eastman — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 05:28:14 +0000

SpaceX: after 350 consecutive perfect flights, we had a second stage failure that resulted in partial mission failure.
FAA: OMG! Stop everything, ground the vehicle, we need a full safety review.
SpaceX: While our investigation is ongoing, we request a waiver to resume flights since there was no safety threat involved in this failure.
FAA:
SpaceX: Ok, our investigation is complete, no big deal, easy fix. About that waiver?
FAA: ……. Ok
BTB Audience: If there was no safety hazard as you just acknowledged, why did you order the vehicle grounded, hmmm?

By: Edward

Edward — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 03:48:46 +0000

It seems that this was a problem that developed during assembly, when a clamp was installed looser than is acceptable. Solution: Remove the redundant line. The best part is no part. SpaceX is half a dozen launches behind, because they did not have the best part.

From the SpaceX link:

Safety and reliability are at the core of SpaceX’s operations. It would not have been possible to achieve our current cadence without this focus, and thanks to the pace we’ve been able to launch, we’re able to gather unprecedented levels of flight data and are poised to rapidly return to flight, safely and with increased reliability.

SpaceX, in its early years, developed a culture of continual improvement of its launch vehicle. Every launch of every vehicle around the world generates an enormous amount of performance data that can be used to improve performance, safety, and reliability. This statement from SpaceX suggests that this culture may still continue at SpaceX.

NASA, however, did not do this in at least two important areas. Rather than correcting a deviation of O-ring performance on the Space Shuttle, they normalized its deviation (“it’s OK as is”) and relied upon Thiokol to make sure the situation remained safe. Rather than correcting chunks of insulation coming off the External Tank during launch, they again decided it was OK as is.

Is SpaceX continually making minor, unsung changes to their hardware before problems develop? Did the company learn from NASA’s mistakes?

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 03:21:15 +0000

In reply to Gary. Gary: Thank you. I have amended the post to include this good news.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 01:33:09 +0000

Appears this is from FAA.

https://x.com/spaceflightnow/status/1816623223330549928?s=46