SpaceX Falcon 9 historic landing thread (1st landing attempt & most recent missions)

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Listen to this interview and you'll get even more miffed. The title alone should let you know what's coming. "Hey, let's ask a physicist because he's a 'scientist' so he might know about why the rocket blew up because we're just so totally clueless about those science things."

Physicist on latest Space X catastrophe

https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/physicist-on-latest-space-x-catastrophe/

On topics any more complicated than what celebrity did some stupid thing, the mainstream 24-hour "news" media is complete garbage.

Michio Kaku is my favorite Physicist and this video really frustrated me. I tweeted him letting him know his interview contained inaccuracies, I hope he replies.
 
In October of 2014 an Antares rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp, and carrying supplies for the ISS, blew up shortly after launching from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
In April of 2015 a Soyuz rocket, built by the Russians, and carrying supplies for the ISS, spun out of control shortly after launching from Kazakhstan.
In June of 2015 a Falcon 9 rocket, built by SpaceX, and carrying supplies for the ISS, blew up shortly after launching from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Sounds bad. Sounds like 3 failures out of 3 rockets. But to say that it's time to reconsider the commercialization of space flight based on that makes about as much sense and saying it's time to reconsider trying to carry supplies to the ISS.

The Russian rocket that failed to reach the ISS is THE most reliable rocket available. The SpaceX Falcon 9 had never failed before, and this was the first time it's had an issue and was unable to deliver the package to the ISS. The Antares rocket has flown 4 times successfully before it's failure. Don't forget all the successful launches by the same rockets in the same time frame as these 3 failures.

3 failures from 3 different rockets built by 3 different companies that failed for 3 different reasons. Why would anyone point to this and say there's a problem with the space program???
 
Michio Kaku is my favorite Physicist and this video really frustrated me. I tweeted him letting him know his interview contained inaccuracies, I hope he replies.
IMO he has a bad habit of jumping in any science-y thing and claiming to be an expert even if it's outside his field.
 
IMO he has a bad habit of jumping in any science-y thing and claiming to be an expert even if it's outside his field.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson has the same issue. I like a lot of the work both of these guys have done popularizing science and physics, but sometimes they stray into areas where they don't really belong.
 
In October of 2014 an Antares rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp, and carrying supplies for the ISS, blew up shortly after launching from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
In April of 2015 a Soyuz rocket, built by the Russians, and carrying supplies for the ISS, spun out of control shortly after launching from Kazakhstan.
In June of 2015 a Falcon 9 rocket, built by SpaceX, and carrying supplies for the ISS, blew up shortly after launching from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Sounds bad. Sounds like 3 failures out of 3 rockets. But to say that it's time to reconsider the commercialization of space flight based on that makes about as much sense and saying it's time to reconsider trying to carry supplies to the ISS.

The Russian rocket that failed to reach the ISS is THE most reliable rocket available. The SpaceX Falcon 9 had never failed before, and this was the first time it's had an issue and was unable to deliver the package to the ISS. The Antares rocket has flown 4 times successfully before it's failure. Don't forget all the successful launches by the same rockets in the same time frame as these 3 failures.

3 failures from 3 different rockets built by 3 different companies that failed for 3 different reasons. Why would anyone point to this and say there's a problem with the space program???


The docking ring (a different one) was also on the Antares rocket but I'm not sure about the Soyuz. Maybe there is something in this cargo that is cursed...
 
Neil DeGrasse Tyson has the same issue. I like a lot of the work both of these guys have done popularizing science and physics, but sometimes they stray into areas where they don't really belong.
Ehh, I think he's a better generalist. He also doesn't proclaim himself an expert in the subject, just a popularizer.

(I don't mean to start an argument here! There are less inane things to argue about :) )
 
When it comes to reducing the costs of putting payloads into space you can either increase the power/efficiency of the engines and or reduce the weight of the launch vehicle.

There's other ways to reduce costs, but what you say is generally applicable to improving or upgrading an existing vehicle. Other ways would be examples such as requiring less manpower per launch cycle, and/or reducing fixed costs. For the rockets themselves, to use less exotic materials in favor of easier fabrication, where practical, The counter-intuitive thing about the Falcon-9 is that it is NOT using very efficient engines, in favor of lower cost and easier to mass-produce engines that are good enough..... and bigger fuel tank capacity to somewhat make up for it). And the resulting rocket, in the 1.1 stretched version, has so much extra fuel capacity that it can afford, in most launches, to carry landing legs and to have fuel left over to land at sea, and in some cases on land eventually.

Then an upcoming 1.2 version will have a more efficient second stage. Well, actually, still the relatively inefficient Kersosene/Lox engine (compared to a Liquid Hydrogen/Lox upper stage engine, but those are more costly to develop and build). Instead, they improved the thrust of the Merlin engine use for the 2nd stage, so with more thrust, the 2nd stage will get stretched fuel capacity and produce a lot more Delta-vee. That improvement will allow, for example, GTO (Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit) missions, to have extra ful left in the first stage for a landing at sea on an ASDS barge. Currently, the GTO missions require so much fuel that there is not enough left to try to land the first stage.

But anyway, methods of reducing costs are not unique to SpaceX.

Are these recent launch failures a sign that we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns?

Some of it is coincidental. Like in 1986, after the Challenger accident, there was a Titan-III or IV that blew up. And a Delta-II was lost…. one of the most reliable rockets ever, when the center engine quit firing then it slowly pitched to an angle of attack that caused it to break up. And IIRC, an Atlas, also reliable, was lost because they launched it into a raincloud and it was hit by lightning, killing the guidance system (that was the last time they ever launched anything at the Cape with lightning within 20 miles of so, and added a lot of lightning sensing equipment around the Cape region).

In the more recent history, the Antares last fall was a rocket still in its infancy, no big surprise it had a failure, And very telling that it will never fly again in that configuration, massive design changes. The Russian-launched Progress resupply ship that went spinning out of control in low orbit, burring up a few days later, THAT is basically an automated Soyuz. But it was testing a new automated system on that flight (was never made clear, to my reading, if the new system was the cause or if it used the old system when it got into trouble and ever had re chance to try the new system).

And a Russian Proton rocket had yet another problem in the last 2 months, 3rd stage failed. That one, it was said there was a design flaw that had existed for decades. While OTOH, about 2 years ago, there was a Proton launch that went out of control at launch. An angular velocity sensor for the guidance system was hooked up backwards. Their quality control had no quality to it.

Now, as to this Falcon-9 failure….. something caused the 2nd stage Lox tank to overpressurize. No cause determined for that yet. Could be as "simple" as a vent valve not opening, or a complex sequence of events since at that timeframe the 2nd stage engine was being chilled-down in preparation for ignition. It could even be something like an anvil dropped onto the top of the second stage. Well, not an anvil, exactly. But the docking ring that was being carried inside of the hollow "trunk" (think Service module with cargo inside), some have speculated that the mounting system for it failed, and it fell off, into the top of the 2nd stage.

- George Gassaway
 
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IMO he [Michio Kaku] has a bad habit of jumping in any science-y thing and claiming to be an expert even if it's outside his field.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson has the same issue. I like a lot of the work both of these guys have done popularizing science and physics, but sometimes they stray into areas where they don't really belong.

Not nearly the same with Tyson. On Star Talk, quite often when the topic involves spacecraft or rockets that he is not familiar with, he has a special guest that does know. Although sometimes the special guest might not know (Tyson could have for example Buzz Aldrin on, and Buzz himself would not be able to answer a lot of questions about the Saturn-V rocket, or many technical questions about the Apollo spacecraft. Because as Lunar Module pilot, he had enough to learn about how to fly the LM, and do the experiments, not what kind of metal the LM landing footpad was made out of or what was the specific impulse of the engines used for the SM, LM Descent stag,e and LM Ascent stage).

I mention the example of Buzz and Apollo, since NDT has had Mike Massimino on at times as a guest expert on the space program. Great guy, but Mike has gotten a few things wrong about the shuttle and a few other things because Mike was trained for doing space missions, not doing maintenance or assembly of the orbiter itself, or a lot of "rocket science" (It's not a knock on Mike, just that Astronauts are trained to fly and how to operate the equipment, not to design, fabricate, or learn thousands of things not necessary to know) .

Anyway, I've seen Tyson try to make use of other experts in fields he knows he is not as knowledgeable in. While Kaku seems to take on the role of expert about all things science even when it involved subjects and details he does not know well. It really hurts his credibility, originally I thought he really WAS that smart about all things science-y, until he blundered into rocket science and space history things that I knew he got wrong. So now I do not know when he is being a brilliant physics guy, and when he's just faking it like he did with the stuff I know he got wrong.
 
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Thirsty, all due respect, I hope that is simply a joke. This thread really needs to avoid veering off into silliness, arguing, or even "pretend" arguing.

Ha ha! Yes, it is a joke. If I decide to pretend argue that topic, I'll take it to the Sagitta Cantina, or some other silly place.
 
A helium tank ruptured and overpressurized the fuel tank. They claim it was from the strut for the He tank breaking.
 
Sorry, I didn't post any updates in all this time. Should have at least renamed the thread so as not to keep saying "this Sunday". I'll fix that after posting this.

Here is a link to an article about SpaceX preparing to Return To Flight:

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/09/spacex-conducts-falcon-9-improvements-busy-schedule/


The failure seems to be that a strut holding a helium tank in place broke, leading to a short chain of events causing the helium tank to expel all of its pressure quickly, rather than regulated slowly as-needed, causing the 2nd stage to burst apart


The initial focus centered on a strut, designed to hold one of the second stage helium pressurization system bottles in place. SpaceX believes one strut “snapped” during first stage flight.
The failed strut is understood to have released the*Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV), resulting in it leaking helium, causing an overpressure event in the tank and the subsequent failure of the stage.
However, the flight telemetry does not fully support a “straightforward*failure” of a loose helium bottle bursting the second stage tank.
“It’s proving to be quite a puzzle,” noted SpaceX CEO Chief Designer Elon Musk in July. “The telemetry data also somewhat confusingly shows a drop in helium pressure – which you’d expect with a breach in the system – and then, somewhat strangely, a rise (of pressure) in the system, back to its starting pressure. This is obviously quite confusing.”
It is believed this failure sequence may revolve*around the bottle breaking free, twisting around, resulting in its helium line “pinching” off the helium manifold, which subsequently restored pressure in the helium system. However, it would have still released enough helium into the tank to cause the Second Stage to fail.

Flights could resume as early as November. First could be the SES-9 communications satellite, on the new "Full thrust" Falcon 1.1 (previously had been referred to as v1.2). Later CRS-8, a resupply mission to ISS. The CRS-8 flight would definitely be a barge (ASDS) landing attempt for the first stage. Not clear (yet) if the SES flight might try a landing attempt, normally no (for a Geosynchronous orbit payload) but with the full thrust version it has some extra performance which might allow enough fuel left for a landing attempt. Quote from the article:

For planning and processing flow purposes, companies such as SpaceX schedule placeholders for upcoming missions, usually citing them as NET (No Earlier Than). However, with SpaceX planning for Return To Flight (RTF) and yet to complete its CRS-7 failure investigation report, such a schedule can only be classed as preliminary at best.
The most recent preliminary schedule (L2) shows the SES-9 telecommunications satellite as the bird that will have the honor of riding on the first Falcon 9 to launch since the CRS-7 failure. This launch will also mark the debut of the full thrust Falcon 9 – unofficially called the V1.2 – which will produce an additional 15.6 percent of thrust. The NET for this launch date ranges from November 1 to mid-November.
SpaceX is yet to officially announce SES-9 will ride first, citing it is up to the customer to reveal this information. Also, SpaceX will likely wish to conclude its CRS-7 investigation prior to announcing a RTF schedule.
However, based on the preliminary placeholders, Dragon will return to Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)*duties with the CRS-8/SpX-8 mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in mid-November.
The placeholder claims a November 16 target while NASA managers later noted they were evaluating a November 15 launch date. Options in December are also being evaluated.
There is no schedule pressure on this launch date, with the orbital outpost ably coping with its logistical and supply status despite the unprecedented run of resupply failures since last October.

The Jason-3 mission, which will launch from Vandenberg, may fly in December. It will try for an ASDS barge landing, on the as-yet unnamed West Coast ASDS. Originally, that barge was to be named "Of Course I Still Love You", but that name was given to the new East Coast ASDS (Marmac 304) that has replaced the original "Just Read the Instructions". JRTI (Marmac 300) was converted back to a regular barge, and its "wings" were transplanted to the new West Coast ASDS (Marmac 303).

- George Gassaway


New East Coast ASDS, Marmac 304 - "Of Course I Still Love You". The blue things at the corners are the thrusters used for station keeping at a precise GPS position, retracted.

Z1Y6Etw.jpg


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West Coast ASDS, Marmac 303, no SpaceX name yet. Some parts of the old "Just Read The Instructions" name and outer circle markings are visible on the wings transplanted from Marmac 300. The wings were not attached, carried on the deck, for the trip thru the Panama Canal, then installed at the Port of LosAngeles

index.php
 
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Here's some more news about the upgraded Falcon, SES satellites, and more.

https://spacenews.com/ses-betting-on-spacex-falcon-9-upgrade-as-debut-approaches/

Mentions the SES-9 launch is set for No Earlier Than Nov 17th.

Big thing answered, the upgraded Falcon WILL allow the SES-9 flight to try to land the first stage on the ASDS landing Barge. The previous version did not have the fuel to do so with a payload like this.

Looks like most of the Falcon 9 flights from now on will have that capability, to try to land on an ASDS (other than the high altitude abort). And unknown about the Falcon 9 Heavy which in final form should be able to land two boosters near the launch site, but perhaps not the first few (But they should at least be able to try to get one of the three first stage airframes to land on the ASDS)
 
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The SpaceX RTF (Return To Flight) mission for Orbcomm-2 is scheduled for no earlier than this Saturday, December 19th, between 9 and 10 PM EST. There will be a static fire test on the pad on Dec 16th. If that goes well, then that may confirm the launch for the 19th (usually 3 days between a successful test and launch date being officially set).

"SpaceX is currently aiming for a December 16 static fire of the Falcon 9 at Cape Canaveral, Florida in advance of the upcoming ORBCOMM-2 launch. The launch of 11 next-generation OG2 satellites is part of ORBCOMM's second and final OG2 Mission at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.* The static fire will verify the readiness of the Falcon 9 rocket and once completed, ORBCOMM'S second OG2 Mission is targeted to launch about three days later between 8pm and 9pm ET. For updates, visit www.spacex.com and www.orbcomm.com."

It will attempt to soft land a Falcon-9 core. The landing MIGHT be back at the Cape, at the new landing facility previously known as LC-13. That seems to mostly hinge on whether the FAA grants a permit in time, the USAF which runs CCAFS has signed off on it.

This will be the first flight since the failure last June. It is also the first flight of the upgraded Falcon-9 that some have called V1.2, but that SpaceX calls Falcon9 v1.1 FT. The FT refers to "Full Thrust", as the first stage Merin engines have been upgraded to their full design potential to produce more thrust, giving an increase in performance (less gravity loss).

Also, there are other improvements. Super-Chilling of the propellants will allow for more propellant density per volume. As well, some tanks have been made a bit longer to hold more, and some mass has been shaved off.

One of the benefits of this is that the core will be able to have enough fuel to land on an ASDS barge, or even back near the launch site (RTLS), when launching heavier payloads that previously required so much propellant that there was not enough left to try a soft landing.

Of course, changes have also been made to address the failure of the CRS-7 flight, when the 2nd stage blew apart when a helium tank leaked and overpressurized the oxygen tank (One of the struts holding the helium tank in place failed, leading to a cascade of bad things)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_v1.1#Falcon_9_v1.1_Full_Thrust

Here is a recently released photo showing the first stage core

Gk48tEJ.jpg


Some minor external changes have been noted in the interstage area. Here is a cropped view of the interstage, which shows that the grid fins no longer have an aerodynamic fairing, and that the RCS thruster quads have been moved down (to left of photo) to about same level as the grid fins.

CvhV9T0.jpg


Compare that with this image of an earlier Falcon (grid fins are not deployed for launch, only after staging). RCS quad at far right.

pmKHNik.jpg


So, again, this flight MAY try an RTLS landing back at the Cape. Such a decision will not be made until shortly before launch. If the FAA does not issue a permit, then it will try to land on the ASDS landing barge, so SpaceX needs to have the barge ready and indeed it will need to leave port by at least Thursday, IIRC (if the launch is set for the 19th, for an ocean ASDS landing still as the default).

If FAA does issue the permission then the ball is in SpaceX's court to decide to go for the RTLS landing or not (there was some question as to whether the landing facility is ready, nobody outside of a small number of SpaceX officials knows). I will note that this decision by SpaceX to go for an RTLS for THIS flight was a relatively sudden thing. It may well have been in response to the Blue Origin flight last month that got so much publicity over landing a rocket that technically flew into "space", though it was an apples and oranges comparison 99% of the media did not understand.

IIRC, the FAA has never issued a statement on whenever they might issue a permit to try to land. Some speculate that SpaceX leaked their "hopes" of landing this mission near the pad to put pressure on the FAA to speed up their decision. If FAA doesn't bite, blame SpaceX for jumping the gun and trying to pressure the issue publicly, not the FAA.

- George Gassaway
 
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I had the chance to tour Innovative Composite Engineering's facility last Wednesday with a group of students. They build a lot of structural components for SpaceX (as well as lots of other aerospace parts). While there we built a CF tube on the same mandrel used to make SpaceX components. It was pretty cool, all the really big stuff they were working on were parts that would become the telescoping landing "legs". I would post pictures, but a lot of what we saw was "classified" information. :wink:
 
I'm not seeing a scheduled launch yet. I was going to be in Florida on Sunday, but if there is a launch on Saturday morning I may have to bump things up a day. I've never seen a "real" launch before, and I'm certain the kids would get a real kick out of it.

Edit - never mind, I picked up the phone. They said to watch it from Coco Beach at 8 pm on Saturday.
 
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Apparently the extra cold LOX is making the static fire test difficult. I hope it's nothing they can't overcome and they're able to test soon and launch shortly after that.

Has it been officially postponed? I was planning on making the trip.
 
Test didn't happen on Wednesday, but from what I can find it looks like they're still moving forward to try and do the test possibly today. And since they'll need a few days between the test and the launch I doubt there will be a launch this weekend regardless.

However, Cape Canaveral AFB has made plans to remove all non-essential personnel for the launch, so that indicates there might be a return to launch site instead of a barge landing.
 
Test didn't happen on Wednesday, but from what I can find it looks like they're still moving forward to try and do the test possibly today. And since they'll need a few days between the test and the launch I doubt there will be a launch this weekend regardless.

However, Cape Canaveral AFB has made plans to remove all non-essential personnel for the launch, so that indicates there might be a return to launch site instead of a barge landing.

Musk said the rocket is stretched and holds more fuel, so it would have enough for the "return journey". I'm just hoping it happens while I'm in Florida.
 
Apparently the extra cold LOX is making the static fire test difficult. I hope it's nothing they can't overcome and they're able to test soon and launch shortly after that.

I hadn't read about the extra cold LOX until I saw this Twitter exchange this morning. Interesting stuff.


SpaceX Retweeted
Elon Musk ‏@elonmusk 14h14 hours ago

Falcon 9 is vertical on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Working towards static fire. Deep cryo liquid oxygen presenting some challenges.

Elon Musk ‏@elonmusk 13h13 hours ago

@PaigeANjax -340 F in this case. Deep cryo increases density and amplifies rocket performance. First time anyone has gone this low for O2.
 
Static fire was supposed to be Wednesday, then Thursday, now today. SpaceX is very tight lipped about this kind of stuff, so the news leaks out in dribs and drabs, usually after the fact, often by Musk directly.

The super-chilling is the first time that SpaceX has done this at a launch pad. They did do so at the McGregor site where they static fire every rocket, after upgrading the equipment there.

For whatever reasons, they've not gotten it fully fueled at cold enough super-chilled temperatures (to hold the volume of propellant that is planned) at LC-40 to do the short static firing they always do.

Stuff i've just read indicates that if they get a good static test today (Friday), that MIGHT set Sunday for the launch date (fewer people working at CCAFS on a Sunday, if they go for a Cape landing, so easier to evacuate a large safety zone for landing). But usually after a good static fire they set a launch date for 3 days later.

Musk tweets:
Falcon 9 is vertical on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. Working towards static fire. Deep cryo liquid oxygen presenting some challenges.


-340 F in this case. Deep cryo increases density and amplifies rocket performance. First time anyone has gone this low for O2.

Orbcomm tweet:
SpaceX Falcon 9 is still vertical. Aiming for static fire today and launch a few days after static fire complete

The tugboat with the ASDS landing barge has already been at sea for a few days. Even though the landing area in the Atlantic, for this flight, is close enough that it only needed about a 16 hour trip to get there, and it left many days early. So a lot of people at first thought it was for a brief test of the ASDS at sea. But it's now apparnetly on-station at the planned landing location. Or perhaps it left early to do some at-sea tests first and allow some time to rush back for a possible quick fix (first time this new ASDS barge was at sea after updates being completed).

There still may be a landing at the Cape. I was surprised to read a message indicating that the FAA would not issue a permit until shortly before launch. But I wonder about the source of whoever said that it sounds very screwy to me that if the FAA was leaning towards issuing a permit at all, they would actually wait until say the day before launch to issue it, rather than just doing it as soon as they decided it would be OK (I would presume the permit is not held up due to weather concerns as any sensible permit for this ought to have some built-in weather limits anyway. Just like a waiver for HPR has to follow the HPR safety code which includes weather limits such as not flying into clouds).

There is too much SpaceX "Fanboi-ism" on this subject to dare to ask if the Emperor has new clothes. In other words does SpaceX REALLY have strong indications from FAA that they are likely to grant a permit for landing this mission, or is SpaceX trying to push their agenda via the media to pressure the FAA?

There are times I really get PO'ed and frustrated with SpaceX, and this is one of them. Not about the technical problems at the pad, that's understandable. But the cloak of secrecy and too many experts who have drunk too much SpaceX Kool-Aid to expect more openness in this regard.

I mean, literally, SpaceX has not PUBLICLY even said they plan to land at the Cape, if FAA grants a permit. They LEAKED that to a news outlet, that SpaceX "hopes" to do it. Which walks, talks, and quacks too much like a duck, to not think it was a ploy to pressure the FAA. Dirty pool. And if SpaceX does not get the permit, and try another ASDS landing, they can easily say "we never said we planned to land this flight at the Cape", which is true AFAIK. But neither have they corrected the record by denying the media reports that they caused to leak out, no comment either way.

- George Gassaway
 
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