SpaceX Launch Fails To Reach Space 263
azuredrake and many other readers have written to tell us:
"The New York Times reports that the third SpaceX launch has failed following the second-stage ignition of the Falcon 1 rocket. The SpaceX launch had three satellites on board, all of which were presumably destroyed in the incident. This marks the third failed launch for SpaceX — twice they failed to reach orbit, and once the Falcon 1 rocket was lost five minutes after launch. While the company vows to carry on, this certainly raises some questions about the likelihood of successful privatization of the Space industry."
Reader Nano2Sol points out a video of the launch from a camera on Falcon 1, and notes a small oscillation just prior to the footage being cut off. Spaceflight Now ran a mission update blog leading up to the failure, and they also have more coverage on the loss of the rocket.
Scotty's final trip (Score:5, Informative)
Re:One company doesn't succeed at once (Score:5, Informative)
Re:One company doesn't succeed at once (Score:5, Informative)
"While the company vows to carry on, this certainly raises some questions about the likelihood of successful privatization of the Space industry."
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*yawn*
If Fiat fails, will we call into question the entire automobile industry? There are many companies working on private space flight. Elon Musk's company is only one of them. And given that Musk seems to be VERY well capitalized, I don't see them taking their ball and going home any time soon. Burt Rutan had a pretty spectacular explosion in their engine development process last year that resulted in a few fatalities, but I don't expect them to roll over and play dead either. I'm sure there will be even more failures peppering the process as time goes on...just like in every other industry.
Too bad about the lost satellites.
Cheers,
Re:Question likelihood of privatization? (Score:2, Informative)
Musk and his employees have 50 years of other peoples failure to draw on
Because we all know how willing the government is to share technological information.
They also don't have near the financing or manpower.
Re:One company doesn't succeed at once (Score:3, Informative)
given that Musk seems to be VERY well capitalized, I don't see them taking their ball and going home any time soon.
Elon musk had previously said that they would pack it in if they had three launch failures. He now says that "I consider DemoFlight 2 to be enough of a success, given that it provides us the data to go operational, to put my "three strikes" rule to bed. I'm in this to make SpaceX the world's leading launch provider and then some."
So while they aren't giving up, it isn't inconceivable that they would.
Re:More ambition than sense (Score:5, Informative)
Only one NASA rocket carrying humans ever blew up, and that was in 1986, killing seven. They lost three to a fire on the pad in 1967, and in 2003 seven more were lost when their vehicle broke apart on re-entry.
The Soviets have had rockets explode on the pad killing many ground crew, but they've only ever lost four cosmonauts - IIRC, all to re-entry problems.
Re:RocketCam cutoff? (Score:2, Informative)
T+00:01:09 - Max Q
T+00:02:20 - Switch to inertial guidance
T+00:02:38 - MECO
So, nothing interesting is going on at the time the video feed is cut, and stage separation doesn't even occur until T+00:02:39 which is about 28 seconds after the feed was cut.
Re:More ambition than sense (Score:5, Informative)
There was one failure in the Apollo program before XI: Appolo I with an electrical fire on board during a test, that killed all 3 astronauts. After that VII, VIII, IX and X were incident free, as well as XI and XII. XIII had a major problem but made it back home. Until XVII and the cancellation of the program there was no more incident.
Re:One company doesn't succeed at once (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps you can clue me in as to what the specific need is for this rocket to begin with. I guess NASA doesn't have a suitable one
You guess wrong. NASA has plenty of "suitability" with the Delta rocket. This program is an attempt to get the job done cheaper.
Re:More ambition than sense (Score:5, Informative)
Not for a from-scratch rocket, it isn't. Atlas, which was to become our workhorse, had an atrocious start. 3 MX-774 failures, then two XSM-65A failure. The third flew to its desired range, but that was only a mere 1,100km. 5 out of the 8 XSM-65s were failures. Then they had 10 launches of Atlas B with 3 failures, 6 launches of XSM-65C with 2 failures, The Atlas D had 135 launches with 32 failures. The Atlas E had 48 launches with 15 failures. Atlas Able had 4 launches, 4 failures. The Atlas F had 70 launches and 17 failures. I could keep on going. The overwhelming majority of these failures were early on in the program, in the 1950s and 1960s.
Yes, SpaceX has the benefit of looking back at what worked and what didn't. But they don't have the benefit of adopting already-tested technology, for the most part. And, to make it worse, they have to pull everything off in what's almost a mass-production environment.
Re:More ambition than sense (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One company doesn't succeed at once (Score:5, Informative)
So while they aren't giving up, it isn't inconceivable that they would.
Felt the need to point out that at least Elon disagrees. Check out the end of his latest message from their website, emphasis mine.
Re:One company doesn't succeed at once (Score:2, Informative)