Musk: No answers so far in ‘difficult’ failure investigation
SpaceX is more than a week into a company-led probe of a launch pad explosion Sept. 1 that destroyed a Falcon 9 booster and an Israeli communications satellite, but the investigation so far has turned up no smoking gun on the cause of the mishap, Elon Musk said Friday.
In a series of tweets posted Friday, Musk said SpaceX is “still working on the Falcon fireball investigation,” and the inquiry is “turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.”
The 23-story Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage suddenly blew apart at Cape Canaveral during fueling for a preflight “static fire” test Sept. 1. The explosion occurred about eight minutes before the first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines were supposed to ignite for a few seconds while the booster remained firmly restrained to the ground.
At that point in the countdown, the Falcon 9 rocket’s propellant tanks are typically not yet pressurized for ignition, based on standard practice on previous SpaceX missions.
Updates released by SpaceX on Sept. 2, the day after the accident, indicated the problem first appeared near the liquid oxygen tank on the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage. Both stages of the Falcon 9 burn the same mix of RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants.
A video of the explosion recorded a few miles away from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad by USLaunchReport.com showed the light from the fireball first appearing near the upper stage, just below the rocket’s nose cone, which contained the Amos 6 communications satellite owned by Israel’s Spacecom Ltd.
Musk referred to the video on Twitter, writing that investigators are “particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off. May come from rocket or something else.”
Full article : Musk: No answers so far in ‘difficult’ failure investigation – Spaceflight Now
SpaceX is more than a week into a company-led probe of a launch pad explosion Sept. 1 that destroyed a Falcon 9 booster and an Israeli communications satellite, but the investigation so far has turned up no smoking gun on the cause of the mishap, Elon Musk said Friday.
In a series of tweets posted Friday, Musk said SpaceX is “still working on the Falcon fireball investigation,” and the inquiry is “turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.”
The 23-story Falcon 9 rocket’s upper stage suddenly blew apart at Cape Canaveral during fueling for a preflight “static fire” test Sept. 1. The explosion occurred about eight minutes before the first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines were supposed to ignite for a few seconds while the booster remained firmly restrained to the ground.
At that point in the countdown, the Falcon 9 rocket’s propellant tanks are typically not yet pressurized for ignition, based on standard practice on previous SpaceX missions.
Updates released by SpaceX on Sept. 2, the day after the accident, indicated the problem first appeared near the liquid oxygen tank on the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage. Both stages of the Falcon 9 burn the same mix of RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants.
A video of the explosion recorded a few miles away from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad by USLaunchReport.com showed the light from the fireball first appearing near the upper stage, just below the rocket’s nose cone, which contained the Amos 6 communications satellite owned by Israel’s Spacecom Ltd.
Musk referred to the video on Twitter, writing that investigators are “particularly trying to understand the quieter bang sound a few seconds before the fireball goes off. May come from rocket or something else.”
Full article : Musk: No answers so far in ‘difficult’ failure investigation – Spaceflight Now
