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Posted: |
Jun 29, 2015 - 9:42 AM
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By: |
Solium
(Member)
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SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion NASA contract to fly at least 12 unmanned supply runs to the space station. Today's liftoff kicked off mission number seven; the previous six flights had all been successful.
Dragon was carrying more than 4,000 lbs. (1,814 kilograms) of food, supplies and scientific experiments. The scientific gear included high-resolution cameras designed to observe and study meteors as they plow into Earth's atmosphere, as well as equipment that would have helped researchers better understand which microbes are present inside the space station, and how these organisms change and adapt over time.
Today's accident follows closely on the heels of two other cargo-mission failures. Orbital ATK's Antares rocket exploded shortly after liftoff this past October, scuttling the company's third robotic cargo mission. (Orbital ATK holds a $1.9 billion deal with NASA to make eight supply flights using Antares and its Cygnus spacecraft.)
And Russia's unmanned Progress 59 vessel fell back to Earth in May without reaching the space station, apparently done in by a problem with the third stage of the Soyuz rocket that launched it to space.
Despite this recent run of setbacks, the International Space Station (ISS) remains well-provisioned into the fall, NASA officials said.
http://www.space.com/29789-spacex-rocket-failure-cargo-launch.html
(On a side note Space X is supposed to launch humans to ISS by 2017.)
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Posted: |
Jun 30, 2015 - 2:26 PM
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By: |
Grecchus
(Member)
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Well I also question Space X claims if this was a crew launch,the emergency abort system would have likely saved their lives.
The rocket was on a proper trajectory with no signs of anomalies until it suddenly broke apart. As far as I can tell a abort system will likely only work if there's time to react to a possible catastrophic failure.
That's a good point, Sol. As far as I know nothing like that has ever happend - that is a crew needing to debark the lit fuse prettydamnquick (excepting Challenger, of course.) It could be the rocket flew into some sort of wind-shear and the tremendous thrust and atmospheric resistance coupled with a sudden heavy sideways shove is all it took. The Dragon launchers have been reliable up till now. Yup, the problem is even more important to get to grips with than landing the first stage for the world to gawp at.
Edit: looks to me like the 2nd stage suddenly exploded, leaving the first stage to keep pushing until it, too, blew apart. You can see something leaving the body of the rocket as a single entity quite clearly post initial explosion. Maybe the 2nd stage engine fired up prematurely, while still encased. Who knows? The problem first shows at about 2:47 and the first stage doesn't itself explode until 2:56. That's about 8 seconds duration, so maybe there was time to eject the payload at around 2:50.
It could also be there was a very small pressure leak in a tank under high pressure. The tank explosion would probably occur as the ambient atmospheric pressure lowered significantly with increasing altitude of the Dragon stack, triggering off a sudden eruption which led to the explosion. Just some thoughts.
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