“To some degree, the company as a whole maybe became a little bit complacent after 20 successes in a row”.
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The June 28 accident destroyed an unmanned Dragon cargo ship about two minutes after it lifted off from Florida for the worldwide Space Station.
The explosion of SpaceX’s most recent space station resupply mission was caused by a structural failure in a strut holding one of the Falcon 9 rocket’s helium tanks, Elon Musk said in a conference call on Monday.
Although the strut was tested to withstand 10,000 pounds of force, it failed at 2,000 pounds, Musk said.
On June 28 SpaceX announced that preliminary data suggested an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank caused the explosion.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft breaks apart shortly after liftoff at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Sunday, June 28, 2015.
“We’re looking very closely- just in general – is there anything we can do to reduce the probability of failure in future flights”, said Musk. Additionally, photos of the strut before launch looked “perfect” with no sign of visible damage or issues with its installation.
To avoid this type of accident occurring in the future, the company will now individually test every strut it installs on a Falcon 9, regardless of its material specification.
SpaceX founder and Chief Executive Musk said flights will not resume until September at the earliest. The strut most likely failed at its attachment point, he added.
He also said the problem is not expected to delay the company’s goal of sending astronauts to space aboard its Dragon spaceship within the next two years. An identical system already had been deliberate for passenger variations of Dragon underneath improvement in…
Musk pointed out that it’s the first rocket failure in seven years for his company, which had 500 people then and 4,000 now. He realizes some thought he was being paranoid.
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“I think this is certainly an important lesson and something we are going to take with us into the future”, he said.
