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

[Tea Party Space Czar]

I really like how Galactic Intruder paraphrased the argument - which is fine.  I am not sure I would have used the same metaphors but it was accurate.

But to a point I think we do need to look at what Jim, Antares, and Ed are saying.  They have been in the business and raised in a culture that has had success.  The culture is changing and I think, that while these individuals do want change, they see obvious errors that the general public simply does not have access to.  Moreover, these individuals understand where risk should and should not be taken.

We call it Operational Risk Management or ORM in the Air Force.  It applies to everything from walking at night with a reflective belt to combat.  Yes, you manage risk, you do not remove risk in combat. 

Do I really need to fly through that SA-6 or can I just fly around it? 

I am sure Jim or Antares will correct me but what I think I am seeing from them is that there were some possible risk reduction activities that could have taken place that were really required and perhaps not as expensive or labor intensive as SpaceX thought.

Ed is holding to his standard - who can fault him?  As long as he annotates its in his log that Dragon did achieve the correct orbit and the second payload did not, I do not see a problem with how he keeps score.

Some of the arm waving here is flat out silly and the speculation is unwarranted.  NASA, SpaceX, and those who need to know - know where the problems are.  They will be analyzed and if correction is required, I am positive it will be done.  Just because most of the posters here don't know what is happening behind the scenes doesn't mean actions are not being taken.

Some need to chill and let SpaceX and NASA do their thing.  The wild guessing of explosions, RUD, GNC Door, ect needs to stop.  We are just fueling the fire. 

We will get the answers, I know we will.  The data is coming folks.

Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space

edit - wording

[pericynthion]

Of course, the engine computers are in hardened boxes at the top of the engine, so the fact that they continued to send telemetry to the flight computer doesn't mean that the rest of the engine wasn't pretty thoroughly beat-up.

[Robotbeat]

Thank you for your insight and trajectory calculations of unplanned exploded\ejected debris.

45th Space Wing's safety record speaks for itself. Quite simply put, if your viewing location was deemed unsafe in a worst case scenario of total vehicle destruction, you would not have been allowed to watch the launch from that particular location.

You can be sarcastic all you want, my point still stands. Neither NASA PAO was an official flight source nor was your location in danger.

That's interesting since they came on 7 minutes before launch and warned us we were on our own if something went wrong. There was an OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT made over the PA stating we were potentially in harms way.

Also, if your script says "all 9 Merlin engines are operating normally" and you are supposed to mindlessly read that 2 minutes after launch... You are either psychic or you need a better script.  /out.

If the pao was watching the feed, it is understandable. F9 went through a thin cloud layer and max q at the time of the anomaly. I didn't notice it while I was watching it the first time.

[Jim]

That's interesting since they came on 7 minutes before launch and warned us we were on our own if something went wrong. There was an OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT made over the PA stating we were potentially in harms way.

No different than the warnings on sporting event tickets

[Chris Bergin]

I don't know if I correctly caught the point being made, but it's worth noting that on the NASA PAO side of the ascent....

1) JSC (and I assume KSC) PAO have a console with live data. I think this is more a JSC PAO deal, however. They have a really nice data console there. However, that would be for something like Shuttle, an MOD run ascent from a FCR - which is why PAO at KSC are in the FCR.

2) It's highly unlikely they would have had live data to hand, as this was a SpaceX controlled launch.

3) He was probably doing it from sight and even I don't watch every second of an ascent when providing just text updates during ascent. Remember Challenger? It's likely during 51L the PAO looked down to his series of events and stopped talking about the range and velocity when he looked up and saw the failure on his screen.

4) Imagine if he had said something "Oh, and that doesn't look good" and more so if he had gotten it wrong. He'd be fired!

5) I actually missed the engine event and I can tell you that as far as I was concerned, everything looked good from the periods I was looking at the webcast.

So no, I don't want anyone jumping on the PAO - if that's what the issue was - for that comment during commentary.

[meekGee]

I disagree a little bit here.

"all 9 falcon engines performing nominally" is a statement that infers that he's privy to engine performance data, or is somehow able to judge performance by himself.

Very different from "everything looks good so far", for example, which is what he could have said if he was only watching the video feed.

This was almost a minute after the engine was shut down.  He basically undermined his own credibility for the next time that I hear him say something like that.

[Mapperuo]

Watching back the NASA broadcast of launch, The failure isn't visible from their views so no wonder he assumed all was well.

[Star One]

All this discussion of the Falcon 9, especially when we don't have the full facts yet, and everyone seems to have forgotten about the Dragon which was less we forget the whole point of this flight.

[Moe Grills]

 My take? That's a GREAT rocket booster, the Falcon 9, losing
one engine, and still being able to carry the primary payload to a suitable orbit.

In my books, that makes FOUR consecutive successful Falcon 9 launches;
asterix or no asterix.
Insurance companies like that. They're paying attention.

By I do wonder if SpaceX will lose money on the secondary payload.

[Jim]

In my books, that makes FOUR consecutive successful Falcon 9 launches;
asterix or no asterix.
Insurance companies like that. They're paying attention.

Wrong.  In their books, it is not.  Insurance companies probably had to pay out for Orbcomm

Updated.

[Herb Schaltegger]

This is not Ice Road Truckers where you fix things on the side. SpaceX knows that. 

Well, unless you need to fix a crack in a niobium nozzle. Then you send a guy into the interstage with a pair of metal snips. 

[StephenB]

In my books, that makes FOUR consecutive successful Falcon 9 launches;
asterix or no asterix.
Insurance companies like that. They're paying attention.

Wrong.  In their books, it is not.

Why not? My assumption would be that getting Dragon berthed is good, and much better than not making it to the ISS.

[Jim]

In my books, that makes FOUR consecutive successful Falcon 9 launches;
asterix or no asterix.
Insurance companies like that. They're paying attention.

Wrong.  In their books, it is not.

Why not? My assumption would be that getting Dragon berthed is good, and much better than not making it to the ISS.

The secondary mission mattered.

[Robotbeat]

In my books, that makes FOUR consecutive successful Falcon 9 launches;
asterix or no asterix.
Insurance companies like that. They're paying attention.

Wrong.  In their books, it is not.

Why not? My assumption would be that getting Dragon berthed is good, and much better than not making it to the ISS.

The secondary mission mattered.

Yes it does, if you're a secondary payload customer. Not if you're a primary.

Even with the performance decrease of the engine-out, the ISS safety gate prevented ANY upper stage restart. Perhaps if SpaceX did a little better job programming their upper stage avionics, it could have been able to restart. Or possibly they may have needed to be able to command the upper stage with a new trajectory that had been approved by the ISS folks (of course, commanding the upper stage doesn't happen nowadays, and I'm not sure it'd even be allowed).

[ugordan]

Perhaps if SpaceX did a little better job programming their upper stage avionics, it could have been able to restart.

What do you mean by this?

[Robotbeat]

Perhaps if SpaceX did a little better job programming their upper stage avionics, it could have been able to restart.

What do you mean by this?

I mean, perhaps the upper stage might have been able to recalculate a new trajectory for restart that would've satisfied the ISS safety gate. I don't know if that was even physically possible at that point, and getting the ISS safety folks to believe that the upper stage could calculate it safely and autonomously would've been a tall order.

[dcporter]

Primary customer matters. Congratulations to SpaceX on a successful primary mission for F9!

Secondary customer matters. If the insurance guys are cutting checks to Orbital, then they're going to remember the next time SpaceX comes across their desk.

Hardware success matters. Congratulations to SpaceX for reaching orbit, and doubly so for demonstrating impressive engine-out capabilities!

Partial hardware failure matters. An engine went out, badly, and it will need to be addressed.

... did I miss anything?

[DMeader]

Isn't it rather late in the history of this engine for there to be a failure of this type, if indeed it was a rupture of the fuel dome? I would have expected something like this much earlier in development.

[mjcrsmith]

It is threads like this that really make me appreciate L2. 

[Robotbeat]

Isn't it rather late in the history of this engine for there to be a failure of this type, if indeed it was a rupture of the fuel dome? I would have expected something like this much earlier in development.

One failure out of about 43? It could've been a manufacturing defect (or something unrelated to the engine, like something flew loose at Max-Q and hit the fuel dome), not an engine design flaw.