SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS/SpX-10 Dragon - Feb. 19, 2017 - Discussion

[kevinof]

That's a first! 

I have insufficient data to have an opinion one way or another, so in the absence of facts I'll just hold fire at this point...

[Rocket Science]

That's a first! 

I have insufficient data to have an opinion one way or another, so in the absence of facts I'll just hold fire at this point...

Yes, I'm putting on my best "Spock-face" today...

[ericspittle]

[...] he suddenly steps in and usurps control it sends some real mixed messages.

[...]

you hear the CEO in one ear telling you one thing and the director in your other ear telling you another?

We're you on console today? If not you're making an awful lot of assumptions about what exactly look place based on zero evidence. In fact, judging by the view into the control room that was shown on NASA TV that showed Musk and a bunch of other people in the control room gathered around a computer it seems a far safer assumption that this call was made by a group of people and Musk is simply taking "blame" for the scrub.

In the absence of any sort of evidence I would say that assuming Musk went against the wishes of his launch team and "usurped" control is ridiculous. Also, unless I heard wrong, LD never gave the Go call, which again lends credence to the fact that the whole team was trying to make a last minute decision. There is ZERO factual evidence that the CEO and LD were ever in any sort of disagreement on what should be done.

It shocks me that there are so many people (edit: seemingly) arguing that they should have gone despite concerns about the issues they were working possibly causing a problem during the flight.

[Lar]

not going is exactly the right decision. this is what we want...

[envy887]

[...] he suddenly steps in and usurps control it sends some real mixed messages.

[...]

you hear the CEO in one ear telling you one thing and the director in your other ear telling you another?

We're you on console today? If not you're making an awful lot of assumptions about what exactly look place based on zero evidence. In fact, judging by the view into the control room that was shown on NASA TV that showed Musk and a bunch of other people in the control room gathered around a computer it seems a far safer assumption that this call was made by a group of people and Musk is simply taking "blame" for the scrub.

In the absence of any sort of evidence I would say that assuming Musk went against the wishes of his launch team and "usurped" control is ridiculous. Also, unless I heard wrong, LD never gave the Go call, which again lends credence to the fact that the whole team was trying to make a last minute decision. There is ZERO factual evidence that the CEO and LD were ever in any sort of disagreement on what should be done.

It shocks me that there are so many people arguing that they should have gone despite concerns about the issues they were working possibly causing a problem during the flight.

Who said they should have gone despite concerns?

[rayleighscatter]

[...] he suddenly steps in and usurps control it sends some real mixed messages.

[...]

you hear the CEO in one ear telling you one thing and the director in your other ear telling you another?

We're you on console today? If not you're making an awful lot of assumptions about what exactly look place based on zero evidence. In fact, judging by the view into the control room that was shown on NASA TV that showed Musk and a bunch of other people in the control room gathered around a computer it seems a far safer assumption that this call was made by a group of people and Musk is simply taking "blame" for the scrub.

In the absence of any sort of evidence I would say that assuming Musk went against the wishes of his launch team and "usurped" control is ridiculous. Also, unless I heard wrong, LD never gave the Go call, which again lends credence to the fact that the whole team was trying to make a last minute decision. There is ZERO factual evidence that the CEO and LD were ever in any sort of disagreement on what should be done.

It shocks me that there are so many people arguing that they should have gone despite concerns about the issues they were working possibly causing a problem during the flight.

Who said they should have gone despite concerns?

I was wondering that myself. Jim seemed to be arguing flawed commit criteria and I was arguing an unclear chain of command, both of which are systemic issues not necessarily related to the specific end decision.

But for the sake of my argument I'm willing to buy that Musk fudged the truth on twitter to take the heat off his team and wasn't actually involving himself.

[ericspittle]

Who said they should have gone despite concerns?

I've made a small edit to my post to clarify that this was what I was reading into some of the posts rather than a direct quote from someone saying that. I apologize if I created any misunderstanding.

That said, it seems there are many taking issue with either how or why the launch was scrubbed, including insinuations that this abundance of caution points to future launches being less safe, and it was that assertion to which I was replying. I personally disagree, and I believe that the facts as I have observed them are directly contradictory to the statements I quoted.

[ericspittle]

I was wondering that myself. Jim seemed to be arguing flawed commit criteria and I was arguing an unclear chain of command, both of which are systemic issues not necessarily related to the specific end decision.

But for the sake of my argument I'm willing to buy that Musk fudged the truth on twitter to take the heat off his team and wasn't actually involving himself.

To clarify I am not suggesting he lied to take heat off of his team, just that the decision wasn't his alone but was made in conjunction with the players that would normally be involved even were he not there, and I believe the visual and audio evidence supports that as well.

I also don't believe that him, or anyone else, calling a hold due to what they see as a potential issue indicates any systemic problems with the chain of command. If he overruled the LD on a call after launch I'd be open to that argument, but after CRS-7 I seem to remember it being clarified that if anyone at the company saw fit to hold a launch for any potential safety issue they were encouraged to do so. Whether it is Elon or a janitor that noticed a bolt on the floor holding for no reason will (in my opinion) always be better than going if there's any reason to believe they should have held. The range will be there to try a launch again after a scrub but once the hold down clamps release there's no changing your mind about what should or shouldn't have been done. Better to scrub for nothing at -13 than to realize you should have at +13.

[Robotbeat]

It's just a 24 hour hold, calling a hold isn't that expensive considering the consequence of a problem. Remember, this pad is the only East Coast pad they've got right now, and Dragon crew and Falcon Heavy are all waiting on this pad to work.

[envy887]

I was wondering that myself. Jim seemed to be arguing flawed commit criteria and I was arguing an unclear chain of command, both of which are systemic issues not necessarily related to the specific end decision.

But for the sake of my argument I'm willing to buy that Musk fudged the truth on twitter to take the heat off his team and wasn't actually involving himself.

How would Elon involving himself result in an unclear chain of command? Anyone who spots an issue can call a hold, particularly Elon, who is the Head Dude In Charge.

As such, he is personally responsible for the decisions of his team, so it's hardly fudging to say he called for the hold even if he was merely assenting to their consensus to hold.

[rayleighscatter]

I was wondering that myself. Jim seemed to be arguing flawed commit criteria and I was arguing an unclear chain of command, both of which are systemic issues not necessarily related to the specific end decision.

But for the sake of my argument I'm willing to buy that Musk fudged the truth on twitter to take the heat off his team and wasn't actually involving himself.

How would Elon involving himself result in an unclear chain of command? Anyone who spots an issue can call a hold, particularly Elon, who is the Head Dude In Charge.

As such, he is personally responsible for the decisions of his team, so it's hardly fudging to say he called for the hold even if he was merely assenting to their consensus to hold.

That would make for a great phone ap. A big red button anyone at SpaceX can hit to scrub a launch.

[Robotbeat]

Sounds like it was two issues that, although seperately were not reason enough to scrub the launch (disposal burn not critical this launch, for instance), were located close to one another physically and so could have had a common cause that may have also caused some other unseen problems for the vehicle.

It seems like a reasonable reason to call a hold, though we don't need to approvingly slap Musk on the back just because he called a hold.

As far as why wait, well the vehicle is doing different configuration changes, such as purge ending, final flight pressurization just before that point, and it sounds like they were discussing the data coming in up until that point. 10s is the last point they can safely scrub without issues.

[su27k]

I was wondering that myself. Jim seemed to be arguing flawed commit criteria and I was arguing an unclear chain of command, both of which are systemic issues not necessarily related to the specific end decision.

But for the sake of my argument I'm willing to buy that Musk fudged the truth on twitter to take the heat off his team and wasn't actually involving himself.

The chain of command is only unclear to us, so what if Elon did override LD to stop the launch? It's entirely possible the rule is written so that he has exactly this authority, it's his company after all. In fact if the rumor "anyone can write to him to stop a launch" is true, he has to have this authority. As long as he can't force a launch despite concerns (i.e. he only has the breaks), I don't see this as a problem. And this is not the first time he used this authority either, he stopped one of the Asiasat launch due to the RUD of F9R-Dev1.

As for why wait until T-13s, seems to me this one is easy: If you have humans in loop, you need to give humans some time to reach a decision. If all decisions can be made in 1s, why have manual hold in the process at all?

[ChrisGebhardt]

Media crew preparing to reset remote cameras. Seems like they are confident of a launch in the morning.

Why would we not be confident of another attempt in the morning?

[Comga]

Who says it was OK to launch but turned bad 13 seconds out?  Musk didn't say this.  It was OK to proceed.
There are other possible scenarios that don't match any of the discussions above.
Not having been there, and not having inside information, it doesn't help to hypothesize. 
We may or may not get the full story.
Hey, I was as disappointed as anyone, waiting there with a great view.  I hope it goes tomorrow, as we are sure thousands of people are.

[rockets4life97]

From the SpaceX Launch Log this looks to be the 5th scrub because of actuator.

Previous missions with an actuator scrub were:

OG2 Mission 1 (twice)
CRS-5
Thaicom-8

Hard to say whether the issue was bigger or smaller than these previous scrubs. However, it seems like SpaceX hasn't had a problem scrubbing a launch do to an actuator issue.

[Jdeshetler]

Maybe Elon aborted this launch so the abnormal actuator can be removed for further detailed analysis in order to close this mystified situation?

[envy887]

From the SpaceX Launch Log this looks to be the 5th scrub because of actuator.

Previous missions with an actuator scrub were:

OG2 Mission 1 (twice)
CRS-5
Thaicom-8

Hard to say whether the issue was bigger or smaller than these previous scrubs. However, it seems like SpaceX hasn't had a problem scrubbing a launch do to an actuator issue.

I'd say 5 scrubs due to TVC issues IS a problem.

[envy887]

Separating the stages to work on? (TVC actuators?)  (He spin up plumbing?)

Where do you see the stages separated? doesn't look like they are in that pic. That crane is reportedly used when there is someone working under or in the interstage. Though I'm not sure how they get someone inside the interstage without separating.

[brettreds2k]

Has any new info come out regarding if they are fixing at the pad tonight or if they think they can fix for a attempt tomorrow?