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

[krytek]

We often have hard drive failures, but because we use RAID, we haven't ever totally lost any data.

Come on. Hard drive failures don't have the tendency of destroying other hard drives when they fail. I cannot believe how you can say that one occurence of a engine anomaly not resulting in LOV proves the vehicle is robust. By the same token STS-27 "proved" that Shuttle will survive tile damage.

They do in RAID 0.

[Diagoras]

To hold another view is to have a bias in systems engineering towards systems without redundancy, which are simpler and will thus have a lower incidence of per mission parts failures, but will have higher system failure rates than a properly engineered redundant system.

I think Robotbeat's point here is the key one. Is there a reason to bias against redundant systems like F9 in favor of simpler ones?

[Garrett]

"Excellent engineering" avoids the anomaly from happening.

You're not an engineer, are you? At least I hope you're not with an attitude like that.

[rklaehn]

Catching up. These guys are scary. Need to stop dodging bullets before they put a crew anywhere near this LV.

There will be a lot of flights before commercial crew. And things like this are exactly why it is a good idea to do many unmanned flights before the first manned one.

That they survived this flight wasn't luck. It was excellent engineering.

"Excellent engineering" avoids the anomaly from happening. What next, the vehicle blows up and you'll praise their excellent FTS?

Completely avoiding any anomalies is not excellent engineering, but magical engineering. As in: impossible. See every launch vehicle ever flown.

Designing a lightweight system to contain a RUD is excellent engineering. The engineering or quality control on the engine was less than excellent, but because the vehicle survived, now they have a lot of video data and telemetry to sift through to find the cause of the failure.

I don't have the slightest doubt that they will take the time necessary to find the root cause of this and take corrective actions, even if it means delaying the second operational flight.

[krytek]

Anyone knows when the GNC bay door is supposed to open?

[corrodedNut]

Anyone knows when the GNC bay door is supposed to open?

About 10 hours ago. Hopefully has, but no official word yet.

[mr. mark]

Should already be open. Seems there is a lot to update in next report.

[VatTas]

That is a umbilical connection point for the upper stage.

Chris, you mean circular opening on the left side of the picture? Of course it is. But look at what's happening right next to it (as I suggested, save-as these images and switch back and forth in some image viewer). Is it physical deformation or some strange video artifact?

[corrodedNut]

That is a umbilical connection point for the upper stage.

Chris, you mean circular opening on the left side of the picture? Of course it is. But look at what's happening right next to it (as I suggested, save-as these images and switch back and forth in some image viewer). Is it physical deformation or some strange video artifact?

I see it, too. Right as announcer calls out MaxQ. I think it's easier to see on the video than the stills.

Keep in mind that the wide angle lens of the on-board camera exaggerates the differences between foregound and background, making objects in the foreground seem big. The area in question may only be a few inches.

Afterwards, some trim around the umbilical orifice becomes partially detatched and flaps around for a while.

[john smith 19]

Catching up. These guys are scary. Need to stop dodging bullets before they put a crew anywhere near this LV.

That they survived this flight wasn't luck. It was excellent engineering.

"Excellent engineering" avoids the anomaly from happening. What next, the vehicle blows up and you'll praise their excellent FTS?

If you actually are a staff member at KSC perhaps you would like to look up how many crewed launch vehicles (operated by NASA or anyone else) have reached orbit when one of their main engines *explodes* (not shuts down a bit early).

I'll stick with Mary Shaeffer's view that "Insisting on absolute safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world."

[ugordan]

Moved from the launch updates thread:

Dragon will have to do a larger out of plane burn but within limits.

You mean on account of some 30 second delay to SECO-1?

[Chandonn]

I'm predicting when the details of this event are released later today, a lot of this speculation will turn out to be wrong and those same people will start yelling "CONSPIRACY!  THEY'RE NOT TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE EXPLOSION!"  Let's let the rocket experts be rocket experts.

Remember when the shuttle returned to flight after the Columbia disaster?  There was one member of the press who took every tiny piece of foam liberation she saw and started screaming "they're all gonna die" at every press conference (not in those exact words, but in her questions).  This whole thread is starting to sound just like that...

[Lee Jay]

I'll stick with Mary Shaeffer's view that "Insisting on absolute safety is for people who don't have the balls to live in the real world."

Seems like a good time to read these:
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/08/14/after-ten-years-why-write-now/
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/after-ten-years-dramatis-personae-part-1/
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/ten-years-after-columbia-balancing-life-and-work/
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/ten-years-after-columbia-balancing-work-and-life/
http://waynehale.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/after-ten-years-the-tyranny-of-requirements/

[rubicondsrv]

I'm predicting when the details of this event are released later today, a lot of this speculation will turn out to be wrong

That is quite possible especially considering the low quality of the video publicly available.

[SpacexULA]

I just don't understand the level of the hand wringing here.  I am sure people from SpaceX where reviewing the video/sensors trying to figure out what happened starting seconds after the warning came up on the telemetry board.

At this point it could be anything from a fairing shacking loose hitting Engine 1 all the way up to fundamental flaw in the design of the thrust structure or Merlin engine.  We have no way ATM to tell how extreme this issue is, but am 100% sure plenty of smart folks are banging their head against the problem, and more will be in shared in the near future.

SpaceX has to keep the confidence of their current customers, future customers, investors, and future investors, I very seriously doubt that the reason for the engine out will be a mystery for very long.

[ugordan]

This video steps through the anomaly frame by frame:



The frame immediately prior to failure shows what I infer is combustion chamber glow seen through the chamber throat (the corner engines are angled outward the most so the viewing geometry would be most favorable for this engine). Next frame shows a point of light quite a bit upstream and slightly "above" and would be consistent with the turbopump location. Overall engine plume location in the two frames suggests this isn't the same glow of the combustions chamber shifted due to camera FOV shifting, but that it's a different light source and that the failure did originate upstream of the chamber, i.e. it doesn't suggest combustion chamber failure. Normally, this location in the engine would I think be obscured by the fairing and TPS.

[rklaehn]

I just don't understand the level of the hand wringing here.  I am sure people from SpaceX where reviewing the video/sensors trying to figure out what happened starting seconds after the warning came up on the telemetry board.

At this point it could be anything from a fairing shacking loose hitting Engine 1 all the way up to fundamental flaw in the design of the thrust structure or Merlin engine.  We have no way ATM to tell how extreme this issue is, but am 100% sure plenty of smart folks are banging their head against the problem, and more will be in shared in the near future.

SpaceX has to keep the confidence of their current customers, future customers, investors, and future investors, I very seriously doubt that the reason for the engine out will be a mystery for very long.

Exactly. They have lots of telemetry and video both from the vehicle and from the tracking camera. The idea that they would fly again without analysing and correcting this issue is frankly ridiculous.

[Ben the Space Brit]

@ ugordon,

Nice video. 

Purely uneducated layman's view: Those bits of debris look too big to be bits of the engine bell to me; whatever happened may have knocked their aerodynamic fairing off or, alternately, the aerodynamic fairing coming off caused whatever that happened.


@SpacexULA

It isn't really hand-wringing.  We're space geeks and we're really interested to know what happened here. 

[peter-b]

Exactly. They have lots of telemetry and video both from the vehicle and from the tracking camera. The idea that they would fly again without analysing and correcting this issue is frankly ridiculous.

I never claimed they wouldn't analyse it -- in fact I'm sure they're doing just that, in great detail. I merely suggested that it might not be cost-effective to correct it for exactly one final flight of the model of engine that failed. I.e. the cost of LOM on SpX-2 multiplied by the probability of the same issue both recurring and resulting in LOM, might be less than the cost of effectively rebuilding an entire Falcon 9 LV. I'm 100% certain that any necessary changes will be introduced to new build Falcon 9s and the Merlin 1D engine.

[Chris-A]

Can't rule out the gas generator or turbine.