SpaceX Pressure Hammers Stuck Valves; Dragon's ISS Mission Back On Track 170
SpaceX's Dragon launch to the ISS earlier today went off smoothly, but the mission encountered trouble shortly after: three sets (of four) of the craft's maneuvering thrusters didn't work. CNET quotes SpaceX founder Elon Musk: "It looks like there was potentially some blockage in the oxidizer pressurization (system). It looks like we've been able to free that blockage, or maybe a stuck valve. We've been able to free that up by cycling the valves, essentially pressure hammering the valves, to get that to loosen. It looks like that's been effective.
All the oxidizer tanks are now holding the target pressure on all four (thruster) pods. I'm optimistic we'll be able to bring all four of them up and then we'll work closely with NASA to figure out what the next step is for rendezvousing with space station," and follows up with the good news that
"Shortly after the briefing concluded, engineers reported all four sets of thrusters were back on line and that testing was underway to verify the health of the system." Barring further problems, Dragon could reach the ISS as soon as Sunday.
Boeing (Score:5, Funny)
wonder if boeing will offer to help.
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It sounds like this is a minor issue which can be easily corrected for the future. Just improve the heaters around that piping, and they'll clear that problem up. Alternatively, could sonic transducers help?
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Yeah... or reversing the phase polarity, that always works on Star Trek.
Really, right now they don't know what caused the problem, it's a little early to design the solution.
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this needs more funny mods.
LOX Valve Icing Stikes Again? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure Musk is aware of this but really, it just seems to make sense to find the best cryo valve guy in the world and give him one and only one full time job: Make sure the damn things work!
Re:LOX Valve Icing Stikes Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
It could be that Musk already got that guy under employment, but the very best guy in this world still fall short of getting this problem licked, once and for all
Re:LOX Valve Icing Stikes Again? (Score:4, Funny)
ever tried to lick a cryo valve?
did you see "dumb and dumber" where the guy's tongue gets stuck to the ice?
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ever tried to lick a cryo valve?
did you see "dumb and dumber" where the guy's tongue gets stuck to the ice?
I triple dog dare you!
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I have not seen a Dragon capsule put into a thermal-vacuum chamber (if it has, let me know). Such a chamber lets you run the hardware through the whole range of environments and temperatures from launch to orbit. Presumably the liquid helium pressurant is very cold, and that can cause valve icing. When the compartment has air around it, that can supply heat to re-warm it, but a vacuum will not do that. So either you simulate the heck out of the thermal environment in a computer, or a test chamber, or fi
Re:LOX Valve Icing Stikes Again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pressurisation would normally use gaseous helium, not liquid. You only need enough to keep the fuel tanks pressurised, so there's no great benefit to using liquid helium and lots of downsides.
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The entire Dragon vehicle was TVAC'd as part of a NASA COTS milestone.
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care to expand those bloody acronyms?
Re:LOX Valve Icing Stikes Again? (Score:5, Informative)
He's AC so won't see your question, so I'll answer.
TVAC: Thermal Vacuum
NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
COTS: Commercial Off The Shelf
LOX: Liquid Oxygen
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how do you ice up in a vacuum?
The same way you do in an atmosphere. You walk to the refrigerator and hold your drink under the ice dispenser.
Re:LOX Valve Icing Stikes Again? (Score:5, Informative)
Dracos use hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. No cryo.
Hydrazine icing? (Score:2)
They are nasty chemicals, just keeping that system under control is difficult.
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SpaceX uses Monomethylhydrazine, which has a freezing point of -50C. So the Nitrogen Tetroxide would freeze first. (-10C). But that said, I don't know what a mono-prop mixture of MMH and N2O4 does to their gestalt properties. Similarly, releasing pressure on a cold, pressurised tank can cause the temp to drop sharply. And they might use a pressurant like Helium, so that's a possible factor too.
But even with all that, it still seems more likely it was just a bad batch of valves than icing. I guess we'll see
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This is just a learning curve for SpaceX. It's not going to be roses for these guys as much as the Internet-to-Space investors want it to be. And I'm sure Musk and his ex-JPL/NASA boys know this. There's going to be more (and even spectacular) failures initially than successes. Just ask Orbital--Orbital Sciences has been through this as the OP said... decades ago.
Still rooting for them though.
I'm wondering where Virgin G is nowadays...
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As others said, Dragon doesn't use LOX or other cryogenic fuel.
However, the upper stage does - and I was rather impressed with the ice buildup inside Dragons trunk section during separation. So some parts of it might or might not have gotten colder than they were supposed to.
No whammies, no whammies... STOP! (Score:5, Funny)
Shit, even bugs can balance a budget (ie, ants storing food for the winter). Our leaders can't pull off a feat mere bugs can do.
Go Elon! Make those valves your bitch, dude!
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The men and woman mentored in the German way are always ready to help.
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Brain Bugs? Frankly, I find the idea of a bug that thinks offensive!
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Go Clyde Johnson, Junior AP Entry Clerk! Make those valves your bitch, dude!
maybe (Score:1)
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Slashdot Comedy Theater presents:
The future of Commercial Spaceflight, Act I
*scene: Inside the command and control center of the spaceX capsule. Dave notices a thruster reactant control system malfunction.*
"Cycle the thruster pod valves HAL."
'I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.'
*earnestly, more sternly*
"Cycle the thruster pod valves HAL."
'I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.'
*frantic, nearly panic stricken, as pressure indicator gauge begins to climb*
"CYCLE THE THRUSTER POD VALVES HAL!"
'Dave, you seem overly con
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You need to work on your funny-to-wordcount ratio.
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Clearly, you have never seen how a screenplay is written. The verbose nature is part of the funny.
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It probably would have been better written as literature rather than video... but done right, that video would be pretty funny on YouTube.
Rediscovery (Score:3, Insightful)
SpaceX staff are rediscovering why we use clean rooms, thermal vacuum chambers, and a full understanding of the launch and space environment. Launch to orbit is unforgiving, and you need to make sure things are right before you try, or you get a higher failure rate.
Valves? (Score:2)
Watch a video of the launch on YouTube (Score:3)
SpaceX has uploaded the CRS-2 launch video [youtube.com].
CEO that knows his tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Could you imaging the CEO of Northrop Grumman or Lockheed being able to talk about the engineering issues at this level of detail? Or even the head of NASA? This is why I bought TSLA stock.
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Anyone can "talk tech" at that (almost non-existent) "level of detail"*, all you need is cue cards and a ghost writer.,
* Seriously, "the valves were stuck, so we cycled them" is about as technical and detailed as "the car didn't start, so we turned the key again" - I.E. not very technical or detailed unless you're not very knowledgeable to start with.
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Nor is it a guarantee that he does.
You have to be truly deluded to believe that.
Why can't they make valves that don't stick? (Score:2)
We've been hearing about stuck valves since the space program in the 1960's. Why hasn't anyone yet invented valves that don't stick?
Re:Why can't they make valves that don't stick? (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is with what you are using the valves for. Holding back dangerous things like Hydrogen and hypergols require very low leak rates when closed. You don't want to work around these things if they have a potential to leak. If you worked around the Space Shuttle on every RCS (Hypergol Thruster) nozzle there was a cover that had a desiccant pack that would absorb any leaks and turn color to indicate a leak. It's a giant pain in the ass to work with this stuff.
When you make valves that can close this tight they sometimes get stuck. Also with spaceflight you need to optimize mass so you can't put a huge valve on everything or it will add up quickly. One thing some satellites do is use a pyrotechnic burst disk right off the tank. This was it stays perfectly sealed until you blow the disk. This is a problem with reusable crafts because you would have to replace them every flight.
Not so bad (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a little early for the doom and gloom here. It looks like they got the valves open and the thrusters working. There's no reason to believe the mission can't be completed at this time.
Yes, it would be better if the valves didn't stick in the first place, and I'm sure they'll look at the problem again, but as problems go in spaceflight, this is just one of a VERY long list of things that have gone wrong that could have been mission ending but turned out OK that have been seen by government and private operations over the years.
Re:Anyone else sick of this guy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. If he's going to make commercial space a reality, I'm all for hearing more from him.
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when he starts taking military contracts to put weapons and spy devices on these rockets i will start to be tired of him very quickly..
its sad to imagine how quickly one goes from 'science!' to .....'weapons'
as is, theyve done great at showing one neednt be an aged defense contractor to do this kind of work... i just fear that that success will be marred by getting involved in some of the nasty stuff those very capable defense contractors are involved in.
Re:Sour grapes (Score:2)
That would be 2014 according to their launch manifest:
http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php [spacex.com]
And, no, I am not sick of him. I want to sell him a seed factory to put on Mars to produce necessities for colonists. Therefore I want his near-term projects to succeed:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:Danielravennest/SFP/Report [wikibooks.org]
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I want to sell him a seed factory to put on Mars to produce necessities for colonists.
It's going to take a lot more than seeds. Double Mars' mass, figure out a way to give it a magnetosphere, figure out a way to get more of an atmosphere and it'll be ready for seeds. It will probably happen, but not in your lifetime.
Oh, and seeds don't come from factories. They come from grain elevators. [wikipedia.org]
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Wow, a Vogon E. E. Cummings! How's that bypass coming along?
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Not premature at all. SpaceX has hired plenty of astronauts and will need them for its test flights of the manned Dragon tests in the next few years. In the meantime, they help with human factors engineering of the manned Dragon.
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True that the first man-made object in space was launched on 3 October 1942 with the launching of the A-4, but that was a baby step that Space-X has far surpassed. Orbital launch capabilities didn't happen until 4 October 1957 when Sputnik freaked America out. I was five years old then, and remember how worried all the grownups were. Odd you never read about that, at least I've not seen anything in print mentioning it.
So really, I'd say fifty years rather than seventy, and wouldn't call that "commercial" sp
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"'Commercial space' has been with us for 70 years."
Calling those endeavors "commercial" is kind of a misnomer. Next to all of them quote one cost during the initial rounds of selection, and then completely ignore those quotes after their design is chosen often exceeding their original price estimate by 2 or more TIMES. And they can legally do it because they all require "cost +" contracts that say they get what it cost them to build + a profit margin. The "Ares I" program is a pretty good example, costs
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space exploration has been private since day one, with defense contrators use space travel to test the capabilities of ICBMs.
what you mean by the 'privitization of space', is only that someone other than a defense contractor, with political backers, is selling NASA something other than a repurposed missle meant for atomic war.
We now have high tech start ups selling the government rockets for purely science reasons, making better designs, and doing it far cheaper.
Re:Anyone else sick of this guy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone else sick of this guy? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll bite.
Making awesome things takes a lot of cooperation. To a certain extent, that cooperation can be bought. Cooperation can be bought more cheaply and more easily, however, if the person being bought is already in favor of the project, and once they're involved, they're far more likely to be passionate about the project's ultimate success, rather than viewing it as yet another boring job in a long career.
Leaders like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk don't just do the "executive" part of the "Chief Executive Officer" role. They act as figureheads leading an army of supporters who believe in the project and are devoted to it. That fanatical love for the goal [pacifict.com] is seen as crazy by outsiders, but it leads to a quality product in the end - albeit after some major trials and tribulations. A bit of vision, a bit of business, and a bit of distorted reality are the secret ingredients to leadership.
Re:My iPod has a great battery life (Score:4, Informative)
Re:SpaceX BETA, Tesla BETA (Score:5, Interesting)
Doing something at 100x less cost is a big deal. Sure it took political influence to be the NASA's first commercial sale. In the end he even saved taxpayers money, so what's not to like?
Driving coast-to-coast without using gas is a chicken-and-egg problem. I'm glad to see someone taking-on the stranglehold of world's largest cartel, with some success.
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Regarding Musk, you keep spilling lies and absurdities as if they were facts without absolutely no evidence and backed up only for your poisin and jealousy. Sorry to break the
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Did you miss the story? It's about problems with SpaceX thrusters, Falcon is approaching a MANNED space station with dodgy thrusters. There are real consequences here. It's not a conspiracy against Elon here, his companies have problems, he doesn't address those problems, he attacks the messenger. NASA should be launching not SpaceX.
There are more cases of dangerous problems with spacecraft in NASA's history (and even recent history) than cases where it all went smoothly. It happens when you are pushing technology to its limit. Sending people to space is as hard as rocket science mainly because it is rocket science.
That said apparently their redundant systems worked as designed and they were able to fix the failure on the fly which means the mission is at this time a success. So I see absolutely no problem here. The scenario was wa
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he's trying to make a COMMERCIAL satellite launcher. i.e. he's trying to make money on a thing that has already been done. He's also failing, as he has a tendency to do, and Apple under Jobs did not.
How is he failing? SpaceX has a packed launch manifest, and has been profitable every year since 2007... Their current launch platform, the Falcon 9, has never suffered a critical failure that caused a loss of payload. The one time a payload was lost (the satellite in the previous launch) was not lost due to failure, but because NASA refused to let them do a second burn to get it into the correct orbit. There was no technical reason why the payload could not be deployed, NASA simply refused to let them do s
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I'll stipulate to all that, but I still would argue that it doesn't make sense to claim that SpaceX is failing when they've been profitable since 2007 and seem to have no trouble getting work queued up quite far into the future.
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i don't dispute apple products being more accessible (they are, for the most part), but i tell you what, having to hold a freaking key down if you want to right click is the enemy of accessibility. i know the mighty mouse or whatever the hell it's called has a right-click, but this is something that took them far too long to address.
disclaimer - my wife has CP (the legal kind) on her right side, so holding down a key with one hand when you can only properly move one hand is a bit of an accessibility issue.
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disclaimer - my wife has CP (the legal kind) on her right side, so holding down a key with one hand when you can only properly move one hand is a bit of an accessibility issue.
Your wife? Looks like you have the same disability, considering your inability to use the shift key. I knew a fellow like that online about 15 years ago. Ironic that it seems that no caps might be a problem for someone with a serious visual impairment.
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because an iPod or iPad are just so similar to a fucking rocket docking with an orbiting space station. gawd can your parent monitor your internet activity just a little?
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On the other hand, Musk products are at the vanguard of our technology and in important areas for mankind where there is dire need of investments. He could make a lot more money staying in less risky business, but he instead decided to take huge risks to the benefit of us all.
Sorry, but Steve Jobs doesn't even classify to be in the same se
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Dreaming of clean papers without the war history or just papers home, they solved it all
Now we can buy it all back at market prices from US commercial space interests at todays prices
Re:Anyone else sick of this guy? (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, even if the mission fails, Musk will show graphs and logs explaining that the valves never actually malfunctioned... ...
(Just Kidding, I am actually on Tesla's side on the test drive debacle)
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Clearly they deliberately only charged up 25% of the valves prior to launch.
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Selling questionable software at the dotcom boom and spinning a lot of flashy tech and buzzwords - when are this guy's 15 mins of fame over?
If he pulls off even half of what he's trying to pull off? Julius Caeser probably has more to worry about in that regard.
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Would you rather hear from Carmack who's been spinning his wheels on a hobby for 13 years with not much to show for his efforts. Musk on the other hand has single-handedly rocked the commercial space industry and proven that there is a better and cheaper way to get to space.
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Can't any mods report that fscker to his provider? When I worked for an ISP I *loved* taking care of those...
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Wow! You too?
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Please do not feed the trolls, we're trying to get the fat bastards to lose some weight. Poor things are all diabetic. Are you trying to kill the poor barely sentient things?
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if that's an AI bot, then we just hit the singularity. that was the best mycleanpc/timecube troll i've ever seen.
my hat is doffed.
Re:What is the worst that could happen (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know the details of this system, but pressurisation valves probably open once and... that's it. Typically you want the thruster tanks unpressurised until orbit and pressurised from there until the end of the mission.
The good news is that, because they'll get the Dragon back, they should be able to dismantle the thrusters on Earth and find out why they didn't work properly.
Re:What is the worst that could happen (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What is the worst that could happen (Score:4, Informative)
I'd say down voted because people here haven't a clue about how NASA deals with things concerning the ISS. If you believe they have given any sort of green light on docking then you are greatly mistaken. $20B+ dollars, 10+ years making, and no room for error they will take no chances over a little more than half a ton of cargo. I've been in meetings and seen them pontificate of completely benign things for a week. They take nothing more seriously than the safe being of the ISS. I'm not saying they won't give it a go, but I would be shocked if they have already given SpaceX the go ahead. Not saying they aren't planning, but I will say there are a lot of people who have some decisions to make and they wo't be done lightly.
Yeah, it's actually more like $100-200 billions depending on how you count, or about the cost of ten to twenty Large Hadron Colliders. And there are six people on board who would have to try to make an emergency escape if something went terribly wrong, so I would imagine everyone involved takes it rather seriously, including SpaceX. SpaceX would become pariahs in the space industry if their hardware did major damage to the ISS or if someone died.
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They take nothing more seriously than the safe being of the ISS.
NASA has a long history of obsessing over small risks while ignoring large ones. For example, the ISS is one small piece of high velocity space trash away from destruction. That didn't stop NASA from pouring a hundred billion or so dollars into the ISS. And if it does go boom, then they don't have any sort of replacement strategy in mind.
Another classic example is the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) on the ground which was until recently a vital and unique role in preparing the Shuttle for launch. NASA h
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Frequently, but not always. It's not unheard of to open and close the source pressure valves, because you don't want to count on the regulators not leaking for any significant length of time. If you leave the source pressure connecting, any regulator leak will likely overpressure the tank. We don't usually do that but it's not uncommon. I would much rather take my chances on valves sticking closed than on regulator leaks.
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Re:What is the worst that could happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Pressure hammer, or water hammer as it is more commonly known, is not a simple pressure transient. It is far more complicated than that and can exceed design tolerances by orders of magnitude. It is a shock-wave traveling at the speed of sound. In power plants, water hammer has destroyed valves, ripped pipes apart, destroyed heat exchangers, etc. The water hammer than you have in your house is occurs at ambient temperatures and pressures, yet it is still able to destroy your piping. When it happens in your body, it rips apart arteries and veins. Consider what happens when it isn't an ambient condition and where there is an enormous pressure difference allowing for phase changes in the liquid. Feel free to do a search and find examples where inches of steel have been shredded by water hammer or where massive heat exchangers have imploded or exploded.
Sorry, but mentioning a spacecraft that has had a pressure hammer event is as big of a red light as mentioning a ship that has had a flooding event or a nuclear plant that has had a massive radiation release. It doesn't mean that everything is fucked, but is sure could be! Pressure hammer events almost ripped Apollo 13 apart on launch. It is NOT a joke. It is a BFD.
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This was not a pressure hammer "event". It was a controlled, deliberate measure to try to free stuck/blocked valves.
Is it possible that they damaged something in the process? Yes, there can always be unforeseen problems; part of the history of space flight is being able to deal with unforeseen problems with the limited tools at your disposal. But let's not jump to conclusions or be alarmist. Leave the analysis to the engineers with the actual design schematics and simulator software to say whether something
Re:What is the worst that could happen (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not accurate to say that the Dragon will be automatically docking with the ISS, since the Dragon doesn't support automated docking yet. Rather, it very slowly approaches the station, holds steady at about 10m, and then the crew (or mission control in Houston) spends hours operating a robotic arm to grab it and bring it in.
As others have pointed out, NASA has the final say over whether the Dragon can even come within a kilometer of the ISS.
The initial approach during the COTS-2 demo was 0.24 meters/second according to this link [spaceflight101.com] and this link [wordpress.com], and the final approach from 30m is even slower.
I'd imagine that the ISS could manage to avoid an object traveling towards it from 30m at roughly the speed of a tortoise, considering that most other dangerous objects in space are traveling much faster.
That's not to say that the thrusters couldn't misfire at just the wrong moment, but considering the care taken in the approach, it's not like they're just aiming it in the direction of the ISS and hoping for the best. It'd have to be a failure that didn't manifest at all until close to the last second, which would be extraordinarily bad luck.
Re:What is the worst that could happen (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe it docks in a non-collision course - meaning the CanadArm reaches out and grabs it as it goes by. If the folks on the ISS aren't comfortable then they don't do anything except wave as the module goes past. Short of some sort of absurd fault which fires the thrusters off at the last minute there shouldn't be any major risk with this. People smarter than I did the engineering so I may be missing something.
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Re:What is the worst that could happen (Score:4, Insightful)
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Here's what I know:
0. Falcon 1: Failure. (Never flew; launch aborted & it imploded later on when a tank was drained)
1. Falcon 1: Failure. (First stage engine failure)
2. Falcon 1: Failure. (Second stage oscillation & engine failure)
3. Falcon 1: Failure. (Stage seperation issues)
4. Falcon 1: Success. (Deployed RatSat)
5. Falcon 1: Success. (Deployed RazakSat)
6. Falcon 9:
Re:In other words .... ANOTHER failure .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, CRS-1 had an engine failure and couldn't deploy its secondary payload, but the Dragon itself still got to the ISS in good shape.
Even that is a bit of an exagerration: they could have deployed the secondary payload in approximately the correct orbit, but NASA wouldn't let them because there was a tiny risk of colliding with ISS if they did so.
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I think a lot of people would count the first Falcon 9 launch as a failure: the uncontrolled roll was pretty serious.
But for a commercial launch company, IMO the only failure that matters is failure to complete a paying customer's mission. And by that measure, SpaceX is 4 for 5 (counting NASA and Orbcomm as separate customers), with #6 in progress and looking promising.
SpaceX has a pattern of having problems in test flights, and successfully completing paid missions. That's not failure: that's good projec
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Ironically, it was one of those customers (NASA) that prevented the deployment of the second customer's (Orbcomm) payload. CRS-1 was capable of deploying the payload, NASA refused to allow it.
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Re:In other words .... ANOTHER failure .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot is brimming with ULA and NASA partisans who will trash talk and outright lie about SpaceX at every opportunity. Given the utter failure of the SLS program to produce any hardware at all, and given the utter failure of the (illegal monopoly) ULA to compete with a price an order of magnitude lower than theirs, it's not surprising.
You are hearing the whines of failure trying to make themselves feel better. They will be forever bitter about SpaceX when they lose their jobs due to SpaceX successes.
Re:In other words .... ANOTHER failure .... (Score:4, Insightful)
a lot of cushy jobs and contracts are gonna be lost due to SpaceX's super low cost launches. I'm surprised there isn't a bigger effort to discredit them and spread FUD, a la Edison electrocuting elephants with AC power.
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Three Falcon 9 launches, three Dragons delivered to station, two (so far) recovered intact. I'd say they're doing pretty good. Despite the engine failure on the CRS-1, and despite the four thruster pods failing, Dragon still made it to orbit, and is on track for a docking. Saturn lost engines during the ascent a couple times, and as I recall, Apollo wasn't exactly seamless either- one explosion, misconfiguration of landing computers, toxic gases pumped into the cabin... The fact that Falcon 9 and Dragon can
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With the difference, that these national space companies you are talking about had their first flights not just under 7 years ago, but more like just under 60 years ago. With far less advanced materials and chemistry, far more primitive automation and without knowledge of how t
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Oh, you are NOT a messenger. You are just a troll.