New SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch CG

[Crazy Eddie]

I am reading that wrong, or is Elon Musk's new tweet suggesting it was the second stage that blew the whole thing up, while the first stage was flying?

"There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause."

That sounds weird.

That's exactly what the video shows. First stage was running fine, but the second stage began to violently outgas above it during the flight. At that point, the nearly-empty first stage simply disintegrates.

it also looks like the capsule separated (or was blown away) from the upper stage during the explosion.

 

[MANT!]

I remember reading about all the problems getting those old Atlas and Titan missiles "Man Rated" and how each unmanned flight failure increased the odds of a successful manned mission, even the Saturn V vibration and pogo during it's unmanned flights almost ensured
a zero mission failure rate later during manned missions..

 

[YellowSubmarine]

With a little bit more luck they could have landed the first stage (even salvaged cargo sans the trunk if Dragon chutes were OK) despite the failure. That would have been badass.

And would have belatedly fulfilled my CRS-6 batshit insane prediction that the launch would fail, but the rocket landing would be successful. Well, I came that close to not being insane.

 

[publiusr]

Some fall-out from the launch
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2780/1

I will say this, the Falcon held together longer than ICBM derived fare, which seemed to come apart rather more easily/quickly

More on the incident
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-space-station-hearing-20150709-story.html
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=83638

"It should be mentioned that this is the first outright launch failure of the Falcon 9 in 19 flights. That yields a launch success rate of 95% which is pretty typical for the majority of mature launch vehicle designs over the past few decades."

 

[YellowSubmarine]

Apparently a strut holding the helium tank inside the LOX tank broke loose at a fifth of rated force, and a natural kaboom followed. That's somewhat confirmed by the way – they tested the supplied struts they had in storage, and many failed. SpaceX will switch supplier, change strut design, do in-house tests of future struts and perform a voodoo strut ritual before next launches just to be sure. Elon calls it an odd failure mode, and indeed from the speculations online this is closest to the crackpot ones. Sadly, we're not flying until September, so if you're planning to make birthday wishes, hope your birthday is after that.

 

[MANT!]

AT least a probable cause has been I.D.ed... I'm hopeful that the man-rating of the Falcon 9 will continue apace..and development of the Dragon Rider manned spacecraft...

Still wondering about the Boeing entry, have they even cut metal yet?

 

[sojourner]

Falcon 9 is man-rated already.

 

[MANT!]

Falcon 9 is man-rated already.

Hmm last I checked SpaceX was still awaiting NASA's sign off..

 

[Corran Horn]

Apparently a strut holding the helium tank inside the LOX tank broke loose at a fifth of rated force, and a natural kaboom followed. That's somewhat confirmed by the way – they tested the supplied struts they had in storage, and many failed. SpaceX will switch supplier, change strut design, do in-house tests of future struts and perform a voodoo strut ritual before next launches just to be sure. Elon calls it an odd failure mode, and indeed from the speculations online this is closest to the crackpot ones. Sadly, we're not flying until September, so if you're planning to make birthday wishes, hope your birthday is after that.

I thought this was interesting...

If the cargo Dragon had been equipped with the same software as the crewed version, the chutes could have been deployed, and the vehicle and its over 4,000 pounds of cargo would have been recovered.

It looks like the cargo might've been recovered but for the software. That's a shame. The Dragon actually survived intact until it hit the water.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

It looks like the cargo might've been recovered but for the software. That's a shame. The Dragon actually survived intact until it hit the water.

We've been awaiting confirmation of that since the rocket exploded. It was kinda evident, given that Dragon survived, both in footage (I didn't see it personally, but everyone else did), and telemetry. It's also frustrating, because it would have been such a pleasing failure if out of the blue SpaceX managed to escape with the cargo and save it, showing off that reliability doesn't mean just a perfect launch record. And the software for it was even there, just not deployed yet.

With with a little bit of luck, they could have lost stage 2, saving Dragon and the first stage. Knowing ahead of time that some launch will fail, it might be prudent to try and make that failure spectacularly successful. An escaping Dragon might have, and the first stage also might have, although I guess safety regulations would have prevented the stages from not using the FTS.

 

[sojourner]

Safety regulations would have blown the first stage. No one wants a vehicle in an unknown condition trying to fly it's way back for landing.

 

[publiusr]

--probably too heavy to come down with a full fuel load anyway.

 

[YellowSubmarine]

--probably too heavy to come down with a full fuel load anyway.

If the first stage is at full fuel load 10-20 seconds before MECO, why don't they just fly to Mars with the remaining fuel, instead of rolling out the Heavy?