SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch and Historic Landing Aborted 70
An anonymous reader writes With only 29 seconds in the countdown, SpaceX had to abort the launch due to a last-minute problem with actuator drift, affecting the motors that control the second stage's rocket thrust. "SpaceX had to scrub Tuesday's attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket to the International Space Station and make a historic rocket landing. The landing experiment would have involved putting the first stage of the two-stage rocket on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean, about 200 miles off the coast of Florida. Such a feat has never been done before. A successful maneuver would have marked a significant step toward making rockets more reusable and driving down the cost of spaceflight."
Better to cancel rather than fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know that they need to get successful launches, but the ability to scrub at the last moment is more important than a "balls-to-the-wall-let's-go-anyway-can-do" attitude. Unlike in Hollywood, there's no room for space cowboys in space.
They'll get it right when it's the right time.
Re: Better to cancel rather than fail. (Score:1)
He worked the Payload console at the time so nothing was up on his end. Upper management didn't share any concerns with the guys at the consoles.
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An important distinction, I think you can agree. While that would indeed absolve the people on the floor from culpability, your original phrasing is easily interpreted as an absolution of the people calling the shots.
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He's not talking technical problems preventing an abort, he's talking political. Engineers working on the Challenger program wanted to abort, expressed concern about the exact issues that caused the accident, and got overridden by management.
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When you blame someone for reckless behavior, do you say "their brain should have made different decisions", or "they should have acted differently"? You don't blame the hand that pulled the trigger, but the mind that sent the command. But both are encompassed when you refer to the individual in gestalt.
I might even go so far as to say the fact that it was possible for the people on the floor to *not* know about the engineer's concern is an indicator of a systemic flaw in the institution itself, irrespecti
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Hey, I don't for a minute claim that private industry is a magic cure-all, in fact they're often worse. But failings deserve to be criticized, no matter who's making them - how else can we learn from our mistakes as a species?
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Who has final authority over Mission Control? The same management that didn't deign to share information with the folks doing the work I'd wager
In general when you blame "X" for something the first place to look for culpability is the highest-level management involved - either they're directly responsible, or they fostered the environment that led to the problem (possibly under pressure from even higher management). Unless you're a manager of course, in which case *obviously* your behavior was above repro
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They HAD that ability, but they pissed it away. NASA refused to listen to engineers and the contractors who were telling them that the O-Rings, as designed, had a high risk of failure given the severe cold that day. [wikipedia.org]
One of the o-rings DID fail, but not until the shuttle was already in the air. At that point, it's WAY too late to scrub.
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Looking at the incident strictly from the standpoint of the PR fallout that NASA received as a result, which do you think would have been worse?
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WHY the children were watching suddenly became a lot less important than that they were watching. To this day we haven't recovered from the setbacks to the American space program caused by that exposion; the ISS was years behind schedule being constructed so years' of experiments haven't been carried out, nearly all other manned-projects never materialized until after we no longer had American
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Just try to make sure they don't get captured by Earth's gravity and add to all the debris orbiting our planet...
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They'll just try tomorrow... or in a few days... (Score:2, Insightful)
But this makes it sound like, "Oh noes, this is technically IMPOSSIBLE LET'S JUST GIVE UP!"
Really it's just rescheduled a few days; the platform landing attempt will still happen; if it doesn't succeed on this go around they will eventually perfect it.
Re:They'll just try tomorrow... or in a few days.. (Score:5, Insightful)
What I find impressive is SpaceX's turnaround time on scrubbed launches. I mean, sometimes they've fixed problems and relaunched within hours - 3 days is rather long by their standards and may have more to do with launch windows than anything else.
Who knows whether they'll nail this particular landing. But I'm pretty confident in the long run that they'll be nailing landing after landing with only the occasional random mishap (which is allowable, since it's unmanned). Now, whether they can collect, transport, refurbish, and relaunch cheaper than just building a new one, especially with their proportionally low production costs, that is yet to be seen. Best of luck to them, though!
Re:They'll just try tomorrow... or in a few days.. (Score:5, Informative)
may have more to do with launch windows than anything else
Yes, the next ISS launch window is Friday morning.
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From what I know about SpaceX their testing regime is pretty insane already.
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Huh? Why would you be impressed by that? Fast turnarounds, where possible, are pretty much the gold standard in the launch industry. You just don't hear about them as much because other launch companies aren't surrounded by the Musk's hype-and-media Reality Distortion Field.
Re:They'll just try tomorrow... or in a few days.. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty sure Mr. Jobs both patented AND trademarked his innovative yet elegant Reality Distortion Field. Please select a non-infringing term when discussing Mr. Musk's abilities. Thank you.
LOL - well played. (Score:2)
As the subject line says.
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Could you remind me when, say, the Shuttle ever had, say, a countdown terminated after engine fire during holddown, a defective part replaced, and then a launch just a couple hours late? Because SpaceX has done that. Their turnaround is impressive by anybody's standards. Heck, that would be an impressive turnaround time for a broken part on a Volvo, let alone a freaking rocket.
Are you really that fucking stupid? (Score:2)
If the Shuttle were the only other launch vehicle out there, that would be a valid question. Instead, it just exposes you as an ignorant jackass.
No, it's only impressive if you're completely and utterly ignorant of the launch industry. (Which is essentially the
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Instead of simply tossing out vague claims and insults, how about you back up your argument with an example of other companies calling aborts after engine ignition during holddown, replacing a defective part, and relaunching just hours later?
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The announcer said they might try again as early as Friday, just before SpaceX live stream was terminated.
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You may want to refresh your definition of fanboi. If Musk asked me to jump off a bridge I'd want a damn good reason or my respect for him would plummet dramatically. Followed rapidly by him, if I judged his reason grossly lacking. After all, clearly he believes *someone* has to go off the bridge.
29 seconds? 1 minute 21 seconds is official time (Score:1)
Not sure where 29 seconds came from. I didn't see it in the article linked. Official NASA count is 1 minute 21 seconds... not that it's too significant of an error in the original post.
"The SpaceX Falcon 9 launch scheduled for this morning at 6:20 a.m. EST aborted with one minute, 21 seconds left on the countdown clock. A thrust vector control actuator for the Falcon 9’s second stage failed to perform as expected, resulting in a launch abort.
"SpaceX is evaluating the
Re:29 seconds? 1 minute 21 seconds is official tim (Score:5, Informative)
Actuator drift [hydraulicspneumatics.com] occurs when a valve is out of null, resulting in a piston moving slowly or drifting when there is no control signal (e.g. when the electrical power is off).
Now to research what is "out of null"....
Re:29 seconds? 1 minute 21 seconds is official tim (Score:4, Insightful)
basically, it's when a valve that would ordinarily be held closed by a pressure gradient (or a mechanical spring) favouring its swing side is missing that pressure gradient and being pulled open by backpressure or another, external force such as gravity. It's like when an airliner does a water landing. The doors would ordinarily hold the air in because they act like valves - the pressure inside the cabin holds them in place. When the airframe is under water, external pressure exceeds internal pressure, and the door seals will inevitably fail. Lesson for the day: in the event of a water landing, get the fuck out of the aircraft.
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After a landing, generally speaking, it is better to get the fuck out of the aircraft anyway. I tried to stay in one of those things for a few nights but the TSA kicked me out.
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Plus, of course:
ken27238: What do you think SpaceX uses for testing software?
ElonMuskOfficial: Kerbal Space Program!
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Historic Landing Aborted. (Score:2)
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Count down abort.. (Score:3)
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That's sort of like the saying, "My keys are always in the last place I look!" It's a truism; it's as if we're supposed to believe that there's people out there who are looking for their keys, find them, and then decide to just keep on looking for them.
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If you wait till the last minute, they only take a minute to fix.
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