Frilock
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It didn't blow up, it became one with the force!
Updates SpaceX Falcon 9 F5 CRS SpX-2 through CRS SpX-12 Updates
- Thread starter Kyle
- Start date
It didn't blow up, it became one with the force!
garyw
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Elon Musk @elonmusk
Cause still unknown after several thousand engineering-hours of review. Now parsing data with a hex editor to recover final milliseconds: https://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: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/615431934345216001
Destruct
I'm not convinced. That SpaceX COO is obviously just a PR person who doesn't know any technical details, and is simply doing her best to put a positive spin on everything for future marketing purposes.
I used to be the Range Coordinator for a launch contractor, and I can tell you that the Flight Termination Safety Officers closely watch both the video and telemetry, and would not be narrowly focused on either one alone to the point of missing the failure and not issuing a destruct command. It's a couple Air Force Officers who sit in a room all by themselves with nothing else to do but watch for anomalies and issue the destruct command. They especially focus on the trajectory and watch for any indication that the vehicle has departed from its expected trajectory/orientation/acceleration, etc. The fact that the 1st stage continued to perform nominally during this time and the flight profile was mostly unperturbed would have made it more difficult to determine that the vehicle had definitely failed, and this is why it was not immediately terminated. But I think the destruct system was activated right at the moment when the vehicle fully disintegrated.
I'm not convinced. That SpaceX COO is obviously just a PR person who doesn't know any technical details, and is simply doing her best to put a positive spin on everything for future marketing purposes.
I used to be the Range Coordinator for a launch contractor, and I can tell you that the Flight Termination Safety Officers closely watch both the video and telemetry, and would not be narrowly focused on either one alone to the point of missing the failure and not issuing a destruct command. It's a couple Air Force Officers who sit in a room all by themselves with nothing else to do but watch for anomalies and issue the destruct command. They especially focus on the trajectory and watch for any indication that the vehicle has departed from its expected trajectory/orientation/acceleration, etc. The fact that the 1st stage continued to perform nominally during this time and the flight profile was mostly unperturbed would have made it more difficult to determine that the vehicle had definitely failed, and this is why it was not immediately terminated. But I think the destruct system was activated right at the moment when the vehicle fully disintegrated.
boogabooga
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What is an "engineering hour"?
I think it is an engineering play on man hour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-hour
Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
Well, usually the few cases where the smoke trail are found within a day are cases where basic errors happen (e.g. the Proton with the overfilled upper stage).
If that happens.....it would not help SpaceX's credibility one bit. :uhh:
Urwumpe
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Wrong and right at the same time.
Right: A Chief Operations Officer does not know any technical details. Its not his/her business. A COO is responsible for forming the interface between executive board and the specialist departments. From down there, the COO is the little brother/sister of the CEO. And in 80% of all cases, the COO is a BA person, not an engineer.
Wrong: A COO is automatically a PR person. That's a lot of belittlement for such a responsible position. The COO is pretty much the person, who has least chances to pass the buck. If company processes are going wrong, quality assurance not working out (especially if a company implements TQM) - the COO is accountable and responsible at once. Also, the COO is a mostly internal position. Its pretty unusual, to have a COO represent the company to the outside, because thats the business of the CEO. The COO is there to free the CEO from internal responsibilities so he can focus on external responsibilities - towards investors and debtors.
But then: Shotwell is also president of SpaceX. She is the second in command and thus also responsible for representing SpaceX to the outside. And as much as you would like to rant about her performance there: She is an engineer. MSC in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics. Also she worked in the aerospace sector for quite a time before going to SpaceX.
Trust me: She knows what is known and what is still a guess. And her statements will only be as good as the statements of the engineers working for her.
Frilock
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Wow, one would almost believe you also work for SpaceX...
Now that is funny!
PhantomCruiser
Wanderer
Gwynne Shotwell has plenty of credential, I tried to arrange for her to visit Tennessee Tech to speak (even offering to foot the bill), but she doesn't do speaking tours any longer as she's far too bust at SpaceX. She's a tremendous boost to women in the STEM fields, and as that just so happens to be what my daughter is in, I wanted her (daughter) to have an opportunity to meet her (Shotwell).
She's also a much better public speaker than Elon (IMHO).
Anyway, back to the investigation... Are we still guessing the stage 2 helium overpressure?
She's also a much better public speaker than Elon (IMHO).
Anyway, back to the investigation... Are we still guessing the stage 2 helium overpressure?
Urwumpe
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At least stage 2 LOX tank overpressure event. Helium is not that mentioned.
But there are only very few possible sources for overpressure. For example an exothermic chemical reaction inside the tank, but also the gas bottles.
Hlynkacg
Aspiring rocket scientist
You realize that Man-rating is simply a holdover from the days when we were still using 1-shot artillery as launch vehicles don't you? An individual Atlas or Titan blowing up is no great loss cause you're launching them by the dozen any way.
It has close to 0 meaning in modern rocketry outside of limiting G-Forces.
Ripley
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How many engineers work for SpaceX? I mean, "several thousands" in less than 24 hours?
I don't mean to doubt Elon's words, but it stroke me...
Urwumpe
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I also doubt that you have several thousands of engineering hours in less than 24 hours. But I am sure that it could easily be more than 1000 hours.
Just think that way: At SpaceX, every data source will get analysed in first iteration by a team of 8-15 engineers. Thats telemetry of the rocket, Dragon or engines, video streams, etc. In second iteration other engineering teams will meditate with the findings of the telemetry analysis over failure trees and other documents from QA. Specialist teams of the various subsystems will get called in for support when needed.
I get easily a number of about 80 engineers of SpaceX working alone on the investigation of that flight at a time. Which means, in three shifts and 20 hours: 1600 engineering hours.
Thunder Chicken
Fine Threads since 2008
Elon Musk's Super Extra Special Law of Relativity: time speeds up near large groups of engineers. :lol:
