SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon CRS SpX-1 MISSION GENERAL DISCUSSION

[Lars_J]

Some quotes from a SpaceX statement re: the engine anomaly found at SFN's mission status page: http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/004/status.html

"Falcon 9 detected an anomaly on one of the nine engines and shut it down," Musk wrote in an email to Spaceflight Now. "As designed, the flight computer then recomputed a new ascent profile in realtime to reach the target orbit, which is why the burn times were a bit longer."

The first stage burned nearly 30 seconds longer than planned.

"Like the Saturn 5, which experienced engine loss on two flights, the Falcon 9 is designed to handle an engine flameout and still complete its mission," Musk said. "I believe Falcon 9 is the only rocket flying today that, like a modern airliner, is capable of completing a flight successfully even after losing an engine. There was no effect on Dragon or the space station resupply mission."

A company spokesperson said more details on the problem would be released Monday.

[marshal]

The Orbcomm satellite was deployed. But was it deployed in the intended orbit? Meaning, did the second stage fire for a second time as planned? There was the option to deploy it on lower orbit if the second burn of the second stage does not occur.

I did not hear about that.

They call ORBCOMM successfully deployed, so it must into intended orbit .

[Galactic Penguin SST]

The Orbcomm satellite was deployed. But was it deployed in the intended orbit? Meaning, did the second stage fire for a second time as planned? There was the option to deploy it on lower orbit if the second burn of the second stage does not occur.

I did not hear about that.

Could be a problem. Standby. (NORAD now tracks 6 objects from the launch (probably Dragon + second stage + Orbcomm + 2x Dragon solarr array blankets + Dragon nose cover), all seems to be in a ~ 200 x 330 km orbit)

[marshal]

The Orbcomm satellite was deployed. But was it deployed in the intended orbit? Meaning, did the second stage fire for a second time as planned? There was the option to deploy it on lower orbit if the second burn of the second stage does not occur.

I did not hear about that.

Could be a problem. Standby. (NORAD now tracks 6 objects from the launch (probably Dragon + second stage + Orbcomm + 2x Dragon solarr array blankets + Dragon nose cover), all seems to be in a ~ 200 x 330 km orbit)

So where are Orbcomm intended orbit ?

[rickl]

The nose cover is jettisoned before it reaches orbit.

[simonbp]

Could be a problem. Standby. (NORAD now tracks 6 objects from the launch (probably Dragon + second stage + Orbcomm + 2x Dragon solarr array blankets + Dragon nose cover), all seems to be in a ~ 200 x 330 km orbit)

So where are Orbcomm intended orbit ?

The second stage was supposed restart and raise the apogee to 700 km.

[rickl]

*If* this was a RUD event for engine 1 - Would this be the first time a LV has survived an "engine RUD" and still delivered the payload successfully?

I'm wondering about that too.  Did we witness an historic first tonight?

[marsman2020]

Did the initial 2nd stage burn last longer then expected as well?

[Tea Party Space Czar]

Holy cow - this is crazy.

Engineering friend said this was certainly a major event.  Also said calling it a RUD or fairing right now is too early to tell.  This video is sobering.  Look at the chunks.



Whatever happened, the engineering into the Falcon 9 is some good stuff.  We did suffer a very serious anomaly and kept on trucking.  Wins for SpaceX and NASA here.

Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space

[aquanaut99]

Whatever happened, the engineering into the Falcon 9 is some good stuff.  We did suffer a very serious anomaly and kept on trucking.  Wins for SpaceX and NASA here.

Judging by the admittedly poor, badly lit video, this event to me looks very serious.

I think it's too early to call this a win for SpaceX. It might just have been sheer luck that we did not see a LOM tonight. And this may well impact greatly on their future CRS schedule.

At the very least, they will have to do some serious investigating on what actually happened.

[peter-b]

Elon Musk has said, from the start, that an eventual engine failure was inevitable with so many engines on each first stage, and that SpaceX were confident that even a catastrophic engine failure would not result in LOM.

There was an engine failure. It did not result in LOM.

Seems to me like good engineering, not a "serious problem".

[woods170]

This thread is a great example of why companies don't bother releasing info in the first place. Too many Internet experts.

Best post of this whole thread. Geezz... I've never seen so much armchair engineering posts in a single thread.

[beancounter]

This thread is a great example of why companies don't bother releasing info in the first place. Too many Internet experts.

Best post of this whole thread. Geezz... I've never seen so much armchair engineering posts in a single thread.

Until you know the facts, educated (and uneducated!) guesses are all you have.  Besides which, it's fun:)

[savuporo]

I think it's too early to call this a win for SpaceX.

Anything but a perfect record is not a win for a launch company with so few launches under their belt.

[rklaehn]

I think it's too early to call this a win for SpaceX.

Anything but a perfect record is not a win for a launch company with so few launches under their belt.

Given that the majority of new rocket designs experience a catastrophic loss of vehicle in the first few launches, spacex has been doing pretty well.

[Kojak]

Elon Musk has said, from the start, that an eventual engine failure was inevitable with so many engines on each first stage, and that SpaceX were confident that even a catastrophic engine failure would not result in LOM.

There was an engine failure. It did not result in LOM.

Seems to me like good engineering, not a "serious problem".

Something that sould not normally happen probably just did. They need to investigate it before anyone can say how "serious" the problem is.

When an airliner has an engine flame out, most of the times it can still fly. Though, depending on the reason for the failure, the fleet might be grounded for weeks/months and may require system redesign/modification before being allowed to fly again.
This, even if "good engineering" designed the aircraft with more than one engine!

[douglas100]

Given that the majority of new rocket designs experience a catastrophic loss of vehicle in the first few launches, spacex has been doing pretty well.

Hopefully SpaceX went through that phase with Falcon 1.

[rklaehn]

Elon Musk has said, from the start, that an eventual engine failure was inevitable with so many engines on each first stage, and that SpaceX were confident that even a catastrophic engine failure would not result in LOM.

There was an engine failure. It did not result in LOM.

Seems to me like good engineering, not a "serious problem".

It was good engineering. Brilliant engineering on the part of whoever designed the lightweight shields between the engines.

But not calling this a serious problem would be deluded. An engine shutting itself down gracefully because some reading like the chamber pressure or the turbine speed is too high would not be a serious problem for a design with built-in redundancy. But an engine undergoing what can only be described as a rapid unscheduled disassembly aka explosion is a serious problem.

The good thing is that their design is so robust that in this case it was able to survive a serious problem without loss of mission. Reminds me of the flight of the DC-X where a hydrogen explosion blew half the fairing away. But having engines blowing up is nevertheless not acceptable. Hopefully they will find something in the telemetry which will allow them to detect such failures quicker and shut down the engine gracefully.

[Ben the Space Brit]

Given that the majority of new rocket designs experience a catastrophic loss of vehicle in the first few launches, spacex has been doing pretty well.

Hopefully SpaceX went through that phase with Falcon 1.

I was going to ask this: Was the core engine on F-1 flight 1 a Merlin-1C? If so, then we're looking at two failures in about 40 or so units flown.

[MP99]

That was F1 #003, I believe (first flight with regen nozzle, and shutdown transients caught them out, making first stage recontact second stage).

cheers, Martin