Now it’s time for “Rocket Science CSI”.
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An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, Florida, June 28, 2015. Lost with the rocket was a capsule packed with supplies for the crew on the global Space Station.
An Antares rocket launched by Orbital exploded in a fireball over a Virginia launchpad in October, weeks after NASA’s contract award to SpaceX and Boeing.
And there was so much pressure on this particular launch following the April failure of a Russian Progress cargo vehicle that spun out of control shortly after making orbit, and last October’s explosion of a Space X competitor’s rocket mere seconds after its launch.
Shotwell said SpaceX has begun a search for debris and will retrieve anything it finds that might be useful in explaining the accident. Except it’s not over in an hour.
Yet the rash of mishaps has many anxious, especially those in Congress who are footing NASA’s bill and have lately been stingy in allocating funds for NASA’s partnership with commercial companies such as SpaceX. Eight months later, Orbital’s investigation isn’t done yet.
SpaceX will also do its own investigation, by checking on 3,000 channels that transmitted data during Falcon’s launch. In engineering-speak it’s called a fault tree analysis. “It’s a complex mystery with multiple suspects”. “It makes one question the utility of that lengthy and costly process”, Simberg concluded.
The cause of the explosion was not yet clear, officials said.
The blast occurred in the craft’s upper-stage liquid-oxygen tank, moments before the main booster was set to separate following takeoff at 10:21 a.m. local time.
– The Dragon capsule survived at first and sent back data.
The launch went well and the rocket was ascending normally before the aircraft suddenly broke apart.
Logsdon thinks she might be right and an answer can be found, fixed and rockets launching again in six months or less.
“Very sorry to hear of the #CRS7 loss”, United Launch Alliance Chief Executive Officer Tory Bruno said in a Twitter message, using the NASA designation for Sunday’s mission.
In the meantime, Sunday’s accident has postponed the SpaceX launch of a sea-measuring satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scheduled for early August, according to NOAA spokesman John Leslie. Now, on SpaceX Falcon 9 failure aftermath, the focus is on the next resupply mission, set this Friday. SpaceX and Federal Aviation Administration officials are investigating what went wrong in the rocket’s final seconds.
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ISS Program Manager Mike Suffredini of NASA said, “we’re not even close to that kind of conversation today given the logistics we have on board”. It’s yet another challenge to NASA’s plans to let private companies handle such launches as it trains its sights deeper into space. He may not bring his children to more launches anytime soon, he says, but he told them to look on the bright side.
