SpaceX set to launch (explode) again Monday

[Wingnut]

Saint Elon set to launch again after failure.

SpaceX plans to resume flights of its Falcon 9 rocket on Monday, after pinning down the cause of a launchpad explosion that destroyed a satellite in September, a spokesman said.
The California-based private space firm is expected to launch 10 Iridium NEXT communications satellites from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Iridium said Friday on its website that a static test fire of the Falcon 9 had been completed and the rocket would be ready for next week's launch scheduled for 1822 GMT, weather permitting.
An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded September 1 in Cape Canaveral, destroying a satellite that Facebook planned to use to beam high-speed internet to Africa.
That marked a setback for the company and its founder Elon Musk, who wants to revolutionize the launch industry by making rocket components reusable.
In a statement earlier this week, SpaceX said it had traced the problem to a pressure vessel in the second-stage liquid oxygen tank. It said it will change the way it fuels for now, and in the future will redesign its pressure vessels.
That accident—the second of its kind since SpaceX was founded in 2002—came just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket failed after liftoff on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station.
Before that, SpaceX had logged 18 successful launches of the Falcon 9—including six of 12 planned supply missions to the ISS carried out as part of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.
SpaceX had hoped to resume Falcon 9 flights as early as November, then in mid-December, before pushing the date to January.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-01-spacex-monday.html#jCp

[kevindavis007]

Space Ping!


@Oceander
@Sanguine
@Cripplecreek
@Freya
@EC
@Joe Wooten
@r9etb
@Just_Victor
@montanajoe
@Ghost Bear
@Free Vulcan
@Idaho_Cowboy
@geronl
@Scutter   

[Elderberry]

From your title it appears you are expecting another failure?

What is their record so far? Around 3 failures out of 29?

I wonder what NASA's failure rate was in their pre-manned flight days?
One of my co-workers years ago had worked range safety on Atlas-Centaur. They were so frustrated having to explode vehicles, launch after launch. They ended up putting cameras all over inside the vehicle. He said he saw in the launch videos, lunch debris and tools flying around.

That's what construction workers do, if they're not called on the carpet for it.

@Wingnut

[Wingnut]

From your title it appears you are expecting another failure?



@Wingnut

I bet my neighbor a (Musk devote) 20 bucks that it would not reach orbit.... just to piss him off. 

[r9etb]

From your title it appears you are expecting another failure?

What is their record so far? Around 3 failures out of 29?

I wonder what NASA's failure rate was in their pre-manned flight days?
One of my co-workers years ago had worked range safety on Atlas-Centaur. They were so frustrated having to explode vehicles, launch after launch. They ended up putting cameras all over inside the vehicle. He said he saw in the launch videos, lunch debris and tools flying around.

That's what construction workers do, if they're not called on the carpet for it.

@Wingnut

It's a bit of a reach to have to compare SpaceX's failure rate, to that of brand new technology being developed 60 years ago.  The truth is that SpaceX does things half-assed, and they have a hiring policy that actively denigrates institutional knowledge. 

As for your friend's description of Atlas failures -- it does not square with their record for the last 25 years, and certainly not with my personal experience working with them.

[Elderberry]

As for your friend's description of Atlas failures -- it does not square with their record for the last 25 years, and certainly not with my personal experience working with them.

I worked with him about 32 years ago. He was much older than me and he didn't say the time frame when it was they were experiencing the launch failures. It could have been at the start of the program. Several of my co-workers who were let go after Apollo came back to work Shuttle.

[jpsb]

It's a bit of a reach to have to compare SpaceX's failure rate, to that of brand new technology being developed 60 years ago.  The truth is that SpaceX does things half-assed, and they have a hiring policy that actively denigrates institutional knowledge. 

As for your friend's description of Atlas failures -- it does not square with their record for the last 25 years, and certainly not with my personal experience working with them.

Atlas rockets have a pretty good record, AtlasII, AtlasIII and Atlas V have no failures. Very impressive. I hope all goes well for SpaceX, one more failure and they are in serious trouble.

[Elderberry]

Atlas, NASA's First Rocket in Orbit, Really Liked to Explode:

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/remembering-atlas-in-its-exploding-glory

July 10, 2012 // 12:10 PM EST


Next week, rocket and space nerds around the world will celebrate an extremely obscure spaceflight anniversary. On July 13, 1948, Convair test fired its MX-774 rocket for the first time. Later renamed the Atlas, it was the rocket built by the US Air Force that took NASA into orbit with the Mercury program. But it was far from perfect. The Atlas had a nasty habit of blowing up. In fact, it’s success rate was a little over 50 percent when John Glenn launched into orbit in 1962.

[r9etb]

I hope all goes well for SpaceX, one more failure and they are in serious trouble.

I'm ashamed to admit that I'm torn.  Their tech is pretty good, but their attitude makes me want to smack them.  Gotta hand it to their PR department, though -- they've buffaloed the Air Force into not paying attention to their failure rate.

[Elderberry]

Next SpaceX launch slipped to avoid stormy weather, range conflict

Forecasters predict a rainy, breezy week along California’s Central Coast, and the poor weather will keep SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket grounded until at least Jan. 14, officials said Sunday.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/01/08/next-spacex-launch-slipped-to-avoid-stormy-weather-range-conflict/

[Elderberry]

[sneakypete]

That accident—the second of its kind since SpaceX was founded in 2002—came just over a year after a Falcon 9 rocket failed after liftoff on June 28, 2015, destroying a Dragon cargo capsule bound for the International Space Station.
Before that, SpaceX had logged 18 successful launches of the Falcon 9—including six of 12 planned supply missions to the ISS carried out as part of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

@Wingnut

Given the complexities,I'd call that a pretty good record.

[Cripplecreek]

I'm ashamed to admit that I'm torn.  Their tech is pretty good, but their attitude makes me want to smack them.  Gotta hand it to their PR department, though -- they've buffaloed the Air Force into not paying attention to their failure rate.

I'm on board with the need for reusables. I'm just not sure the upright landing is the way to go about it. Its like trying to land a pencil.

If we ever get around to routine launches from the surface of the moon where there is less gravity abd no weather it might be more feasible.

[sneakypete]

Atlas, NASA's First Rocket in Orbit, Really Liked to Explode:

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/remembering-atlas-in-its-exploding-glory

July 10, 2012 // 12:10 PM EST


Next week, rocket and space nerds around the world will celebrate an extremely obscure spaceflight anniversary. On July 13, 1948, Convair test fired its MX-774 rocket for the first time. Later renamed the Atlas, it was the rocket built by the US Air Force that took NASA into orbit with the Mercury program. But it was far from perfect. The Atlas had a nasty habit of blowing up. In fact, it’s success rate was a little over 50 percent when John Glenn launched into orbit in 1962.

@Elderberry

Which should prove beyond any doubt from anyone that John Glenn and his contemporaries had some serious stones. It would take an immense amount of courage to volunteer or agree to go into orbit around the Earth without knowing for a fact you could return,but when you add to that the fact that there was roughly a 20/50 chance you wouldn't even make it into orbit,there are damn few healthy people that would be willing to take that sort of risk.

Although if it were me,I would MUCH prefer to blow up with the rocket taking off than slowly suffocate in the capsule while orbiting the earth and knowing they had screwed up and there was no hope of returning.

[kevindavis007]

They did it!!!



Space Ping!


@Oceander
@Sanguine
@Cripplecreek
@Freya
@EC
@Joe Wooten
@r9etb
@Just_Victor
@montanajoe
@Ghost Bear
@Free Vulcan
@Idaho_Cowboy
@geronl
@Scutter   

[Elderberry]

 Update for 1:30 pm ET: SpaceX has successfully launched (and landed) its Falcon 9 rocket and 10 Iridium NEXT satellites. Read our full story here: SpaceX Returns to Flight with 10-Satellite Launch, Rocket Landing

http://www.space.com/35256-spacex-falcon9-rocket-return-to-flight-webcast.html
@kevindavis
@Wingnut

[Elderberry]

Iridium Corporate ‏@IridiumComm 33m33 minutes ago

All 10 #IridiumNEXT satellites have been succecfully deployed into Low-Earth-Orbit #NEXTevolution

[Wingnut]

Oh well.  There goes 20 bucks down the drain.  I told him, Double or nothing on the next failure.   

[kevindavis007]

Here is the video:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FS1Sdib6yU

[Elderberry]

Oh well.  There goes 20 bucks down the drain.  I told him, Double or nothing on the next failure flight. 

There. Fixed it.
 
@Wingnut

[Oceander]

Very nice.  How much of that is automatic and how much of it is manual real-time guidance?

[bigheadfred]

Iridium Corporate ‏@IridiumComm 33m33 minutes ago

All 10 #IridiumNEXT satellites have been succecfully deployed into Low-Earth-Orbit #NEXTevolution

Have you ever seen the Iridium flares?

http://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=iridium

[Wingnut]

Have you ever seen the Iridium flares?

Iridium Q-36 explosive space modulator?  Where is the Kaboom?

[bigheadfred]

Iridium Q-36 explosive space modulator?  Where is the Kaboom?

In space, no one can hear you scream.

[Elderberry]

Have you ever seen the Iridium flares?

http://www.satflare.com/track.asp?q=iridium

Nope on Iridiums. I have seen Echo, Shuttle, ISS and plenty of them Unidentified Thingys