Was Falcon 9 Destroyed? Answer: No.
? was destruct signal sent? Shotwell – not sure there was one.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) June 28, 2015
Still waiting for #NASA to say "yes/no range safety officer hit the big red button" & blew up Falcon 9 #CRS7 @SpaceX pic.twitter.com/j630mq40f1
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) June 28, 2015
Keith’s note: Dan Billow specifically asked for an answer from both SpaceX and NASA as to whether a destruct signal was sent to the Falcon 9. Gwen Shotwell answered. NASA did not.
Keith’s update: When I asked NASA PAO “Did the Range Safety Officer send a signal to the Falcon 9 to self-destruct?” they replied “No, the range didn’t have a chance.”
SpaceX Falcon 9 Mishap: More Details Emerge, SpaceRef
“SpaceX now confirms that the U.S. Air Force Range Safety Officer did initiate a destruct command but that this command was sent 70 seconds after the mishap occurred, as a formal matter of process. There was nothing left to destroy at that point.”
Doesn’t matter. If the 2nd stage LOX tank burst through over pressure. I did not see any orange, so the kerosene and oxygen did not mix. But there would be shrapnel. Gwen said that a Crew would survive. Maybe not. The parachutes are mounted on the outside of the pressure hull. They might be punctured. This explosion might be strong enough to strip everything off the pressure hull. It may have survived and is floating on the ocean. USA capsules before Dragon and Soyuz have the Parachutes inside the pressure vessel. I had commented before worried about reentry melting the chutes, they have not, but I had not thought of this problem. Dragon-2 may not be so spacious any more.
The other thought I had was my just today, commenting about Ares-1 and solids. In HS 50 years ago I was a wanabe engineer. Never made it. The one thing that impressed me about engineers back then was the Kiss. Keep it simple stupid. Today if there is not a lot of complex systems, then an engineer is not doing their job. Solids don’t explode. They may leak. They might if the nozzle was stopped up, but at 500psi that will blow just about anything thru. O-ATK and I are the only ones supporting solids. USAF sounded interested. Maybe they will bring back Ares-1. If it had been kept flying, it might be available. But the ISS supply schedule sounds OK.In all the comments I have done about solids, no one have ever agreed. There is far less tech that can go wrong in a solid.
Compare the debris field of the Shuttle with solids failure to today SpaceX failure. The vapor cloud abruptly envelops the LVs and about 1sec after breakup, even when mounted on the side, the nose of the orbiter emerges from the clould.
https://www.youtube.com/wat… (2 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/wat… (5 mins 20 sec)
Unfortunately, the SRBs are intact and after a delay, could be destroyed by the ground to protect other assets, creating a larger debris field.
It is very difficult to abort from a SRB, and the LAS must be much larger as well.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Also note that Max Faget, the lead designer for Shuttle, stated that solids were a major mistake.
Assured access to space means having at least two LVs, which means the AR-1 and BE-4 on Atlas do not meet that need, so its a premature decision to retire the DeltaV Medium.
With the full Delta suite of LVs, there is no gap until a commercially competitive LV is brought on line by the 2020s.
Further, the two engined with solids Vulcan will likely not be commercially competitive, and flies different configurations for cargo (with solids) and crew (no solids).
The explosion highlights that fact that launching Class A cargo (crew or $B satellites) needs every uncrewed vehicle in a common configuration with a return capsule it can get to find that unknown failure mode, but when launching cheap payload one can take more risks with a less expensive LV and perhaps without a capsule and LAS. Perhaps solids can fly Class D payload instead?
The use of the word “mistake” in the Max Faget interview that I read was solely in the context of discussions about design and performance. When the topic of Challenger came up in the interview Faget put the blame on the decision to launch a segmented SRB in cold weather. Sure you could argue that if Shuttle didn’t have SRB’s then that situation would have never happened. But Max Faget did not make that argument, at least not in the interview that I read. Unless there are other interviews that I am not aware of where Faget referred to the use of SRB’s as being a mistake in clear context of the Challenger accident.
Also in the interview that I read Faget used the term “mistake” specifically to describe the decision to build the SRB’s in Utah which required building them in segments. He also said the Utah decision also put constraints on the size and shape of the SRB’s since they had to be able to ship by rail. In fact he stated “the size limitation was probably more serious than the segmenting.” If that statement sounds odd it’s because again his comment was made in the middle of a discussion about performance, not about Challenger.
And anyway Challenger is not really a good argument against ever using any solids of any type in any crewed launch vehicle. Besides segmenting, other complexities with Shuttle SRB’s were the steering gimbals and the recovery system. But the huge issue that created risk on every Shuttle flight was that the Shuttle orbiter was not capable of LAS, only RTLS. Thus the inability to cut-off or throttle the SRB’s meant that an abort could not begin until the SRB’s had separated. Capsules would not have that limitation and could be aborted even while the solids (or liquids) are firing.
Liquid stages have their own boatload of complexity and capability for catastrophic failure as seen today. Each type has its risks, and all of the risks should be analyzed in the context of the specific design in order to come up with the safest and most reliable system for a particular launch vehicle.
The liquid External Tank or upper stage explodes. The Launch Abort system activates, parachutes deploy. If the LV contains solids, there could be a time delay following the explosion and the activation of the parachutes, and a command sent to rip the SRBs down the sides, not on top, dispersing large chunks of ‘charcoal’ that burn for some time, with a probability that one of the burning embers may touch the parachute, which is explained in the video linked above.
I was only thinking cargo. But I have presented a plan in answer to the Range saying chunks would destroy the parachutes in a destruct. Turn out to sea as soon as the SRB launches. Just clear the towers. Inertia sends all debris out to sea. More time if steering fails. A destruct would eject the nozzle. No thrust. Inertia still is sending it out to sea. Plenty of time for capsule to blast off and the rocket has no thrust and can not catch up. Or a circle of explosive, just enough to cut, melt the steel case at the bottom. The 500PSI would blow off the bottom venting the thrust. I read that NASA and ATK are going to work on a more benign destruct. I wrote the House science committee about this. Maybe I alerted them and they are insisting that NASA do something.
They did not destroy the solids on Challenger. They went in opposite directions and arced into the sea. No need to destruct. O-ATK, USAF should rush a solid system as backup ASAP. A solid would not explode. The steering may go out. I do not remember any steering failures on the Shuttle SRB. A solid is the least likely to fail and should be used on all launches. Can’t do that so there will be more failures with liquids every so often. NASA said they were and are ready for that. Got to show our technical prowess with all of the complexity of the liquids. A solid only has the hydraulic steering to fail. It has a cable going to the 2nd stage to control it. Pretty simple. O-ATK will be shipping segments for the SLS. They can add 4 for Ares-1. The satellite owners and insurers ought to order a SRB launch from O-ATK.
The corrective action is to identify the failure mode and correct the design to eliminate it. The Ares I was not particularly simple. Consider the thrust vectoring system, for example.
No spacecraft has had parachutes mounted internal to the pressure shell, unless you count the individually worn parachutes worn for low speed escape on Gemini, and the shuttle for STS1-4 and post Challenger accident, or ejection seat primary landing system used on Vostok.
Solid fuel rockets can definitely explode:
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Initially the O2 and kerosene didn’t mix but there were a few orange fireballs later before vehicle destruction.
The next question then is if this had been a crewed flight would it have been survivable. There may not be an immediate answer as it’s more of a data question. After determining the cause they can analyze if their planned LAS would have received enough information to be able to react quickly enough.
Why is nasa letting Boeing skip their in flight abort test again???
Maybe that should be changed?
Maybe you should also ask why does SpaceX not have to repeat their failed pad about test? (Or do they? I have lost track of the outcome of that test.)
The test wound up within their acceptable parameters, on the low end, but within the margins. So no retest needed.
According to Shotwell, if the vehicle had been a Dragon v.2, the escape system would have saved the crew.
A surprising statement since at least at the time she made it they did not know the exact cause of the failure, so how could she know absolutely for sure that the LAS would have kicked in? Most likely it would have but I would think she was just stating what their preliminary opinion was. Hard to imagine that the priority in the first few hours was to determine if the LAS would have saved a crew. I would think that 100% of their attention at the moment is on root cause so that they can launch their upcoming scheduled flights on time, flights which have no dependency on LAS.
About eight seconds elapsed from the rupture in the second stage to the point where the first stage disintegrates
Seems like plenty of time, as long as the specific rupture scenario would have been picked up by sensors correctly and interpreted by the software correctly and triggered LAS. Most likely it would have I’m just saying it’s a question that to be answered definitely will be answered with detailed analysis not just looking at video.
If the sensors did not pick up the rupture correctly, I think you can bet that the sensors will be improved to do so.
Surely, but they would only know that if they analyzed, which I am also sure they will do. In case my original post wasn’t clear, I merely stated what the next question is, not whether SpaceX will be asking it. I really doubt that Shotwell’s answer indicates that they have already made their decision on this and won’t be later analyzing in detail to verify that the LAS would have worked in this situation.
There is no blanket requirement for autonomous flight termination although some vehicles succh as the Titan used it, primarily for such things as premature booster separation.
Survivability with an abort system is a good question, I have a hard time imagining SpaceX being transparent about this and other questions related to this investigation. The must submit an investigation report, but the findings and investigation itself is internal.
@Saturn 13: One less-than-minor point that you miss with solid rocket boosters: once you light them, you CANNOT turn them off. If your guidance or anything else goes wacky, you are screwed big-time. Liquid fuel may have more complexity, but it can easily be turned off.
You cannot just instantly shut off liquid engines either, at least from what I understand it takes a few seconds to do it safely to avoid an explosion. And anyway if you’re LAS has already pulled your capsule away from the booster what difference does it make if the solids are still running. The chance of one of them chasing after and running into the capsule are small.
I’m not saying the fact that solids cannot be shut off poses no risk, but that it should be balanced against the inherent risks liquid engines have that solids don’t. I think the decision in the end will be specific to each particular launcher design.
A liquid failure of either the upper stage or lower stage occurs, the Launch Abort System activates, parachutes deploy. If the LV contains solids, a command to rip the booster down the sides may occur either from the ground or the LV, creating a large burning ember debris field, and one of the embers may touch a parachute. Recall that the solids kept on flying on shuttle until the ground issued the destruct command. This could occur before or after the capsule has cleared the liquid rocket debris field. With a delay of only 3 seconds on HLV, it causes the LAS to increase to a mass on par with the capsule, a huge performance penalty. The risks and mass penalty to the LAS by adding solids do not appear to have benefits for Class A payload. Note that Atlas would fly crew without solids, but other Class A payloads, worth perhaps a billion or more includes solids, an non-common configuration.
Valid additional risk, I mentioned one of the solids chasing down and running into the capsule, I could add to that a solid running into one of the parachutes, possibly damaging it or catching it on fire. But that would only be one parachute which as far as I know it’s a requirement of LAS that the landing would be survivable if you lose one chute. You bring up the possibility of the solid being detonated in the vicinity of the capsule, in theory that could damage two or more parachutes with shrapnel or embers, or the capsule descending through the debris cloud with embers and two or more parachutes are affected. I still think we are talking low probability scenarios, but that is something they would factor in as part of the risk analysis, and decide what are the odds of two or more parachutes being damaged by a solid exploding nearby, as compared to all of the other things that can go wrong with a launch.
SpaceX has planned a cargo Dragon 2 to ISS. After an event like this it sure would have been nice to see a chute gently setting Dragon down in the Ocean.
Now tell me again, WHY is Boeing being allowed to skip the in flight abort test for their crew capsule again????
Asked and answered repeatedly. In-flight abort was optional. Boeing isn’t skipping anything.
Maybe you missed the explosion today!
To not design and TEST a crew abort system to account for such an anomaly is reckless and irresponsible!
Something should be done to correct this before we fly crew.
Boeing does have an abort system, its engines recently passed qualification testing.
And they are doing a pad-abort test.
The explosion today was SpaceX’s rocket. Boeing’s rocket, the Atlas V has a perfect safety record after 54 flights. The only anomaly it has seen is a 4 second early thrust termination on the upper stage orbit circularization burn, leaving the payload in a slightly low orbit due to a valve leak, which is not a safety of flight issue.
Perhaps somebody felt like the difference in safety record justifies different testing priorities? (Just guessing.)
The Atlas V is LockMart’s rocket. Boeing’s is the
Delta IV.
So, in an inflight abort test, exactly which scenario are you proposing they need to test? There are many possible scenarios.
While an inflight abort test would provide more data and possibly useful data, to say it’s irresponsible or reckless is a matter of opinion.
I don’t know which scenarios should be tested???
Which would you suggest?
None as it is now???
I think an in-flight test would be beneficial, but that’s not the same as necessary. Data from a pad abort can be extrapolated to the aerodynamic conditions of an in-flight abort.
And WHY is it optional???
NASA didn’t require it.
Well then somebody at NASA safety has their head up……….
Not likely. Ground performance and in-flight performance should be the same.
However, in hindsight, the SpaceX decision to baseline that _optional_ test seems like a very good idea. They can credibly say, if that had been a crew flight, the crew would have survived. If the Boeing rocket fails in an unmanned flight, their lack of an in flight abort test would make it harder for them to make the same statement.
I agree, it is a good move by SpaceX.
I’d rather see them do a repeat of the pad abort test until they have at least one unambiguous success instead of trying to explain away an abort engine failure and coming down one gust of wind away from hitting the beach as acceptable.
Well, if they wanted to, they certainly have the time available on the East coast range now. But I strongly suspect they won’t, since the test still passed all of their and NASA’s objectives.
The original design called for a port at the nose that could have been explosively opened to zero the thrust. That feature was dropped from the design. The booster destruct charges were strictly to terminate flight,and would have destroyed the orbiter as well if it were still attached.
The charges down the side of the SRB lowered the chamber pressure to near zero instantly. The reason a orbiter would have been destroyed are not from that but from the fact that the two SRBs couldn’t have been stop at exactly the same time cause a huge imbalance in thrust from one side to the other.
Fragments from the exploding boosters would have made mincemeat of the ET and Orbiter.
Not necessarily. The package could have been on the side away from the orbiter and also, they use shaped charges to split the side. More likely the asymmetrical thrust and perhaps bending of the SRB when the charges went off would destroy the ET which would cause aerodynamic breakup. I believe most of the damage to Challenger was due to aerodynamic breakup.
With the Dragon also carrying the docking Collier. Could the added weight have crushed the oxygen tank under it???
How was the load of it supported in the trunk??
How would it have crushed the O2 tank if the payload was within design limits? Given that by default the payload was within design limits, I’d hazard to say that the chances of the scenario you propose are vanishingly small and very possibly non-existent.
How was that docking Collier supported?
Isn’t it attached to the walls of the trunk basically hung there?
Could it have broken lose and fallen do to launch?
What’s under it? The dome of the oxygen tank, right?
Just wondering how it was packed in there?
Possibility Mr. Squared
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the docking collar was placed in the capsule so that it would absolutely not move.
Possibility? As close to certainly not as you can get without being zero. Do you actually think that the design for how the docking collar was packaged and placed in the capsule wasn’t considered carefully? Further the docking collar would have to go through the bottom of the capsule and through the heat shield structure to even come close to doing what you suggest.
I’ll bet you $500 that didn’t happen.
You said
“Further the docking collar would have to go through the bottom of the capsule and through the heat shield structure to even come close to doing”
Incorrect Sir the trunk is under the heat shield
And I don’t bet.
And you are very likely correct. I would think it was carefully packed as well.
See diagram so you can understand how Dragon is put together
The load of whatever is in the trunk is transfered to the second stage through walls of the trunk.
Yup, I forgot that the collar was loaded in the trunk. It’s of little consequence though, as I think you’re the only one who’s seriously considering that as a possible cause of the incident.
Perhaps you should call SpaceX and give them the benefit of your engineering knowledge.
You made me laugh on this sad day.
Thanks lol
I’ll call them right away
I would have thought that nasa engineers would have calculated the ability of ice covered Styrofoam to break brittle heat tiles to, but they didn’t.
Actually, NASA did calculate the odds of foam insulation damaging heat shield tiles. Then they wrote a flight rule banning all types of FOD. Then the folks working on the insulation said 0% risk of FOD just wasn’t possible and got a waiver to the flight rule. Read the CAIB report.
The normal practice is to have lots of flight rules and interface control documents, to assure that one subsystem will not adversely affect another. So the idea the payload in the Dragon harmed the Falcon second stage, while not impossible, would mean someone wasn’t following the ICD or someone approved a waiver without thinking it through. The process is supposed to make that highly unlikely.
Just keep in mind that it was not the foam tank insulation that hit the leading edge on the Columbia, it was a fairing block that came loose from the bipod strut. The fairing was not really needed and was easily deleted from the design by the next flight. Had the failure mode been forseen, the change could have been made before STS-1. The danger is in unanticipated failure modes. Safety lies in getting a lot of flight experience to reveal all the failure modes, _and_ in eliminating them by correcting the design. The latter step was not possible on Shuttle because most of the design was frozen before the first flight, and because the design change process was so cumbersome that changes that were needed (such as the SRB joints) could not be made quickly and so were waived for years, until it was too late. To paraphrase Macbeth, if there is modification to be done, it’s best done quickly.
Still wouldn’t bet you, but here is some food for thought, Seems they still don’t know the cause, it just blew up.
Seems the possibility maybe a little more than zero.
You give odds on your bet? 🙂
A quick release?
If SpaceX did not design their spacecraft to support the mass of the docking collier (collar?) under launch loads then they have no business designing spacecraft. I agree with PsiSquared.
Yep, that could have happened. They pretty much just throw any old payload in there and let it rattle around without thinking about it and just hope for the best when they light the fires. Cheaper than doing any actual engineering or what not, you know…
/sarc
deleted
Seems it was put in there with a Boeing quick release if this guy is correct.
Does the vehicle have an autonomous in flight termination system similar to what destroyed the grasshopper flight in Texas? Usually it detects vehicle breakup and initiates the vehicle destruct system. If a crew were on board, it would initiate the LAS.
It doesn’t appear this was the case.
I was wondering the same thing
11:58 here
HOPE
http://spaceksc.blogspot.co…
This further exemplifies that we are not nearly ready to begin colonizing Mars.
Resupplying the ISS is probably one of the simplest tasks demanded of spaceflight. We have yet to master basic orbital flight, despite all the hype, talking about colonizing Mars right now as a realistic possibility is somewhat irrational.
At the end of the day the Falcon 9 is still a chemical rocket, riddled with all of dangers and inefficiencies of any rocket.
One would think that nearly 70 years of successes and failures of rocketry would make mishaps like this rare, much like Boeing learned from DeHavilland’s mistakes on the Comets in the development of the 707.
But no, it looks like we’ll be stuck here awhile.
Yup. Astonishing that rockets fail, when in this modern era, airplanes never do.
Yep. We’d make more actual progress if we’d quite trying to start our doctoral thesis when we should be focused on getting our elementary school homework right.
I’ve repeated it here more times than I can remember, but problem number one is that we still have major technology deficiencies in even the simplest aspects of spaceflight that we are failing to effectively address.
I think they kept the SRB destruct since you could have a Challenger type accident and would want to keep them from coming back to land. I think they removed the ET destruct package since it would be destroyed in place in the even of an accident.
I recall the last call before the overpressure was to initiate second stage engine cooldown, presumably by circulating LOX through the engine. Is it possible a problem in the cooldown circuit or a failure triggered by the LOX flow could have led to the overpressure?
I don’t see how, but Musk did say it was a counter-intuitive sort of failure.