Author Topic: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch  (Read 25124 times)

Offline Glom

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #15 on: June 30, 2015, 10:36:25 AM »
Lots of talk against the notion that something in the spacecraft came loose, specifically the docking adapter. That would probably have registered somewhere.  Discussion now seems to be on the tank itself.

Offline ka9q

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #16 on: June 30, 2015, 02:21:21 PM »
What happened to the third stage with the instrument ring and the loose panels of the LEM Adaptor?
Depends on the mission. For Apollos 8, 10, 11 and 12, the excess LOX on the S-IVB was vented in a forward direction to slow the stage down. This allowed the moon to cross its path before it got there, so it swung around the trailing "edge" of the moon. The moon dragged it along in its orbit, acting as a slingshot to eject it into an earth escape trajectory so that they went into independent orbits around the sun -- where they remain today.

Starting with Apollo 13, the LOX dump events were tuned so that the stages would hit the moon. Not only did this get rid of some space junk (though space junk in solar orbit isn't much of a problem) but it created some nice, well-calibrated seismic signals for the seismometers left on the moon. This helped probe the moon's interior structure.

As Zakalwe points out, Apollo 12's S-IVB was a special case. It was intended to slingshot into solar orbit, but it didn't approach the moon closely enough and remained in a very high earth orbit for a while before perturbations finally ejected it into solar orbit. In the early 2000s, it was temporarily recaptured into a high earth orbit where it was briefly mistaken for a natural asteroid. It then left earth orbit again a few years later.

Northern Lurker is right that what happened to the SLA panels depends on the injection trajectory. For the early missions that used the free-return trajectory, they almost certainly looped around the moon, returned to earth and hit the atmosphere. I'm not sure about the later missions, but they're likely in solar orbit.

One of the more persistent legends among UFO enthusiasts (another fairly crazy group) is that the Apollo 11 crew saw a UFO on their way to the moon. From the discussions with the ground it's quite obvious that they merely saw one of their SLA panels.

Offline Bryanpoprobson

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #17 on: June 30, 2015, 04:50:21 PM »
Lots of talk against the notion that something in the spacecraft came loose, specifically the docking adapter. That would probably have registered somewhere.  Discussion now seems to be on the tank itself.

The CT side claim it was shot down by a UFO. :D Apparently what is obviously, (to me anyway) a piece of the disintegrating rocket falling away, is actually a UFO leaving the scene after shooting down the rocket.

Words fail me.. :)
"Wise men speak because they have something to say!" "Fools speak, because they have to say something!" (Plato)

Offline smartcooky

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #18 on: June 30, 2015, 04:57:02 PM »
You ask questions here, and you learn things that you didn't know.

That's why this forum rocks!

If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong.

Offline BazBear

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #19 on: June 30, 2015, 08:54:00 PM »

Which brings up a question for me.

AIUI, after the TLI burn, the third stage and everything forward of it is heading for the moon on a free return trajectory. Shortly after leaving the earth the crew translates the CSM and extracts the LEM from the LEM Adaptor, and when the CSM+LM nears the moon, they execute a LOI burn to go into orbit.

What happened to the third stage with the instrument ring and the loose panels of the LEM Adaptor? Were they still on a free return back to earth or do they crash into the moon

 

AFAIK unspent fuel and oxidiser were vented to change trajectory to solar orbit. From Apollo 13 onward S-IVBs were directed to hit Moon to give ALSEP seismometers something to measure. I have no idea about SLA panels but if they were on free return trajectory I'd guess they reentered and burned in atmosphere.

Lurky
IIRC, the crew of A11 saw what turned out to be one of the SLA panels during the Earth-Moon coast.
"It's true you know. In space, no one can hear you scream like a little girl." - Mark Watney, protagonist of The Martian by Andy Weir

Offline JayUtah

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #20 on: July 01, 2015, 01:38:11 AM »
The general consensus in the industry is that in the Falcon 9 epoch, SpaceX has led a charmed life.  Which is to say, given what we know about the design climate there, this sort of accident was bound to happen.  This is not to say SpaceX is incompetent.  It's to say that SpaceX makes similar design-performance-cost trade-offs as other companies, and those tend to manifest themselves abruptly and unpleasantly.  It was simply SpaceX's turn.  Musk is all about pushing the envelope regarding new capabilities.  This is not generally compatible with reliable, low-cost access to space.

The Falcon 1 was, according to inside industry judgment, and unmitigated failure.  It accidentally succeeded once, and Musk was entirely justified in ash-canning it.  We had all hoped Falcon 9 would be the redemption.  It still may well be, but every rocket lineage has its share of failure.  Had the Saturn V flown more, it would likely have endured a similar blemish.

Earlier, in a different thread, I remarked that SpaceX would have to prove itself through performance.  Until then, it may have a lot of popular support but not as much credibility in the industry.  How  SpaceX responds to this incident will tell the world a lot about its staying power in the field of commercial space launch service.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Luke Pemberton

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #21 on: July 01, 2015, 02:02:01 PM »
You ask questions here, and you learn things that you didn't know.

That's why this forum rocks!

Absolutely, several posts here make compelling reading are are most interesting to those that work outside the industry.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former - Albert Einstein.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people – Sir Isaac Newton.

A polar orbit would also bypass the SAA - Tim Finch

Offline bknight

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #22 on: August 01, 2015, 01:34:16 PM »
Also the quality of the footage of the Saturn launches was terrible compared to the footage of yesterday's launch.
True but it has been 45 years of technological advances in imagery that probably helped the current video.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
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Offline bknight

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #23 on: August 04, 2015, 10:05:43 PM »
...
  Had the Saturn V flown more, it would likely have endured a similar blemish.

...
I was re-reading this thread and remembered I knew a female shuttle astronaut about 12 years ago, don't ask because I don't remember her name.  In was after Columbia broke apart and she was schedule on maybe the 2nd mission after re-starting.  She told me that statistically 1 in every 100 slights ends in some sort of failure.  Is that ratio still valid after all the launches we've had in the last 12 years?
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline gwiz

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #24 on: August 05, 2015, 06:26:33 AM »
The success rate for launch vehicles is in the range 90-98%, depending on the organisation doing it.  The Russians and the US start-ups are at the low end, Arianespace, ULA and the Chinese at the upper end.
Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a diseased mind - Terry Pratchett
...the ascent module ... took off like a rocket - Moon Man

Offline bknight

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #25 on: August 05, 2015, 08:26:56 AM »
From our discussion she was referring to all flights and not characterizing a specific country.  But the figure of 90-98% agrees with her assertion.
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline Glom

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #26 on: October 19, 2015, 06:52:29 PM »
Hearing return to flight may be within a couple of months?

Offline bknight

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #27 on: October 19, 2015, 07:05:23 PM »
Hearing return to flight may be within a couple of months?
Where did you hear that?
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan

Offline AtomicDog

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"There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death." - Isaac Asimov

Offline bknight

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Re: Oh Dear! SpaceX rocket explodes after launch
« Reply #29 on: October 19, 2015, 08:02:55 PM »
Thanks  and   here's hoping that it is a successful flight and landing on the barge
Truth needs no defense.  Nobody can take those footsteps I made on the surface of the moon away from me.
Eugene Cernan