Vehicle would have gained some delta V with a nominal loss of the fairing. Thus could not get into orbit.
Quote from: Chris Bergin on 02/24/2009 12:35 pmVehicle would have gained some delta V with a nominal loss of the fairing. Thus could not get into orbit.I got the impression from the briefing that the mass of the fairing was a quite significant proportion of the mass of the combined vehicle at theat point, so the remaining thrust would have had to accelerate significantly more mass than intended, resulting in a significantly lower (suborbital as we now know) velocity at cutoff.
I was trying to amplify that "some delta V" might actually be a large part of the required delta V - in other words it wouldn't be close to reaching orbit.
Well at least it seems like it's pretty clear what happened, not like some of the other failures where we're all left in the dark.
Quote from: Jim on 02/24/2009 11:31 amFirst failure under the watch of NASA LSPFeel sorry for Antonio.
First failure under the watch of NASA LSP
Quote from: Jason Davies on 02/24/2009 11:53 amQuote from: Jim on 02/24/2009 11:31 amFirst failure under the watch of NASA LSPFeel sorry for Antonio.Well, don't. This comes with the terrritory. You work hard to prevent days like today, but you have to be ready to accept them, and, most importantly, recover from and learn from every failure.That said, it is a time to remember how hard this business is, how humble one has to be, and how vigilant one has to be. There is no room in this business for complacency.
This is the type of thing that you solve inductively. You eliminate branches (fault tree) and bones (fishbone) and end up with certain ones that you don't have the evidence to eliminate. This will be the path unless there's a smoking gun in telemetry, which is typically known pretty quickly.The spaceflight ordnance world has been a bogeyman for a few years now. Too much consolidation, too much turnover, not enough business to keep the good guys around.
Trying to see a crumb of comfort here but will a successful analysis of the problem just make Taurus II a bit more reliable from the start, i.e. is it to use the same separation technique ?
I'm not going to argue with that, but we should acknowledge that we have no way to know if the ordinance itself was the problem here or not.
Quote from: Lee Jay on 02/24/2009 02:39 pmI'm not going to argue with that, but we should acknowledge that we have no way to know if the ordinance itself was the problem here or not.No doubt. PS, ordnance explodes. Ordinance is what sends you to jail if you make something explode.
Well, don't. This comes with the terrritory. You work hard to prevent days like today, but you have to be ready to accept them, and, most importantly, recover from and learn from every failure.That said, it is a time to remember how hard this business is, how humble one has to be, and how vigilant one has to be. There is no room in this business for complacency.
ANYTHING you learn will make the next flight and the next rocket more reliable.