(FAILURE) SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 launch - CRS-7

[jerjozwik]

at least it was a pretty way to go. very effervescent.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

Elon tweeted it being due to an over-pressure event in the upper stage liquid O2 tank.

 

[Cosmacelf]

So that perfect circle moments before explosion could have been O2 venting?

 

[dmetcalf]

Yes, sad to watch up close.

So sad, I'm 15 miles south of the launch site and viewed what was looking like a perfect launch from my from yard and then the large fireball. Brought tears to my eyes.
Praying to nail the launch and landing next time.

The kids were a little freaked out seeing it so close and something obviously going wrong. Lots of local friends from NASA and SpaceX feeling pretty somber.

 

[Lloyd]

Here is a screenshot of the facebook post of the upper stage at the time of explosion.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

A very grim press conference indeed. There's some redundancy as far as logistics are concerned, it seems, but, SpaceX would apparently have to make sure they are flight-safe before commencing any further launches. They didn't even mention CRS-8 in September so, that's probably unlikely at this point.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

Also, did Gwynne suggest that Elon was a bit "forward" in tweeting about the potential cause? I may have misheard that bit at the end.

 

[dhanson865]

Also, did Gwynne suggest that Elon was a bit "forward" in tweeting about the potential cause? I may have misheard that bit at the end.

I think you might be talking about the recovery question (someone asked about recovering debris). She said they will release more information later in the day and that Elon leans pretty far forward in the tweet (I think she meant this as a positive that Elon would share information if something needed to be shared).

 

[dsm363]

The launches had seemed almost routine at this point so was only worried if they'd stick the landing this time. Just shows you how difficult launching a rocket into space actually is.

 

[dhanson865]

Elon Musk on Twitter:

There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause.

radar of debris reported by cuweathernerd on reddit
http://i.imgur.com/0zoTJCk.png
- Album on Imgur

To the west, you can see showers moving east, while the dark column to the east is rocket debris/uncombusted fuel/etc. These are low power returns, but you can see how long they stayed in the atmosphere after the event, and even started to interact with the weather. Pretty nifty!

gif with slow motion applied to the interesting parts, need to watch full screen or it'll be cropped (at least in the browser I view it in)
Gfycat - jiffier gifs through HTML5 Video Conversion. Fast, simple gif hosting without size limits.

frame by frame youtube
SpaceX F9 Failure - YouTube

- - - Updated - - -

unconfirmed rumor of cause


AmericaSpace on Twitter:

AmericaSpace ‏@AmericaSpace
2 inside sources say @SpaceX F9 upper stage LOX tank has had liner cracking problems where the dome attaches, an issue @NASA has known about

AmericaSpace on Twitter:

AmericaSpace ‏@AmericaSpace @SpaceX @NASA @elonmusk sources claim the fix was to spray a bunch of Teflon in that area and hope it relieved the attachment stress?

 

[mdevp]

SpaceX CRS-7 Launch - YouTube
Saddening.

 

[hockeythug]

That was very sad to watch live this morning. I guess when you follow the company so closely you feel you are part of the group. But no injures and hopefully good data on what went wrong.

 

[Auzie]

For human babies, it is impossible to learn to stand up without falling. Every fall sucks but is quickly forgotten and baby quickly moves on.

As it is inevitable for a baby to fall, it is equally inevitable to one day completely master the balance and start walking wherever she wishes to.

Statistically speaking, failure from time to time is almost certain in a business like Space X.

It follows that today's launch is an inevitable unavoidable step towards the goal of improving and mastering rockets launch and retrieval. Today sure sucks awfully, but it will suck a bit less tomorrow, and so on until one day today gets completely forgotten, like a person that does not remember any more all the baby falls. What will stay and be remembered are the ability to keep the balance, to walk and all the great achievements along the way.

Go Space X, we are all with you guys!

 

[dhanson865]

Elon Musk ‏@elonmuskhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/615431934345216001 Cause still unknown after several thousand engineering-hours of review. Now parsing data with a hex editor to recover final milliseconds.

and of course news rags and their online equivalents are running the "they don't know what their doing" headlines now.

 

[atang]

Wouldn't that be something if it did eject safely?

At post flight NASA press conference that's what Gwynne said, (para phrasing) "We received telemetry from Dragon for a period of time after the anomaly happened". Great prediction/analyses/guess/wish/hope, whatever! I was hoping that SpaceX software team had programed in a line or two of code such as, "Yo Dragon sweetheart, if during us propelling your rear end to 17,500 miles a hour toward link up with ISS. If your altimeters and other high tech stuff tell you there is another thing happening, like heading back to Earth pronto, then yous might want to deploy some chutes, Iffin' your able." Seriously I was shocked by this event but as others have said space is hard. We will learn from this and come back ten times stronger. Good call Krugerrand!

 

[Vger]

My biggest concern is how this affects the Crew Dragon program. An event like this would possibly have been fatal with folks on board.

Even if they get a clean explanation and a fix, I think it could push the crewed certification process back months.

 

[Doug_G]

No, not fatal; there is an escape system. In fact, Dragon is unique in being able to execute an abort escape at any point during the launch. Previous launchers either had no escape system (e.g. shuttle) or one that could only function during the early stages of the launch (e.g. Apollo).

 

[Grendal]

No, not fatal; there is an escape system. In fact, Dragon is unique in being able to execute an abort escape at any point during the launch. Previous launchers either had no escape system (e.g. shuttle) or one that could only function during the early stages of the launch (e.g. Apollo).

That's actually true. The Dragon abort system would be the only system with a chance of being successful if an anomaly happens like what happened with this F9. I believe the traditional escape systems become useless at Max Q. This Falcon had past that point. There was almost 10 seconds from the first indications of a problem until the entire rocket was destroyed. That would have been plenty of time for the abort to occur. Would have been a lot of G's they would be pulling right then.

 

[bxr140]

and of course news rags and their online equivalents are running the "they don't know what their doing" headlines now.

To be fair, there's plenty of spacex fans (some on this forum) that salivated over recent Russian failures...

 

[chickensevil]

Would have been a lot of G's they would be pulling right then.

But hopefully alive. Which is the important part.