Falcon 1 Flight 3 Launch Thread

[astrosammy]

I for the life of me cannot get that to play in any player I have installed.

I have the same problem.

 

[DaveS]

Weired. No problems here and I'm using VLC.

 

[Cobalt]

Fixed it by using WMP, and when buffering is done just skipping the playback forward a few seconds. Works fine then.

I don't think that's what they wanted to happen at that point.

 

[pete.dakota]

Doesnt' work for me in VLC. It appears to work in WMP, but with intermittent frame rate jumps. Only been able to watch it once through at the nominal frame rate once.

Very interesting video. There's certainly no doubt as to what caused the failure. Which is good for SpaceX. There doesn't need to be a lengty, costly investigation. They can press on with the issue and look forward to upcoming launches.

 

[n122vu]

That's the regular broadcast version. What Cobalt is talking about is the unreleased version, which shows the mishap happening. The regular version doesn't as it was broadcast with a significant delay and was cut before the mishap was shown.

Ah, sorry, my mistake.

 

[Kyle]

Here's the Full one that shows the screw up
http://mfile.akamai.com/22165/wmv/spacex.download.akamai.com/22165/F1-003.asx

Looks like something I did on Orbiter once, Separated from the 1st stage, forgot to fully cut off the First stage, and the First stage rammed right into the second stage. Apparently something similar happened says Elon Musk. Also faring sep occurs, which
Stg 2 is spinning like nuts, also similar to orbiter.

 

[astrosammy]

Strange I still don't get it working.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Link opens fine for me in Winamp. You can really see just how huge a delay they had on the video feed! Interesting video. Doesn't show much more than what has already been told, but still interesting to see. The 'oscillations' actually don't appear significant.

 

[silent_protagonist]

Full video is up: http://mfile.akamai.com/22165/wmv/spacex.download.akamai.com/22165/F1-003.asx

That's just painful to watch.

I'm glad to hear that it looks to be a fairly simple fix, but it worries me when they say "Oh, we'll just do -blank-, and it'll be fine." It seems to me that they should be implementing several redundant solutions to the problem, ala installing a beefier separation mechanism(difficult and would need testing) or adding a software interlock to prevent staging under acceleration (I would think very easy)--as were mentioned earlier--to be sure that they've really killed it. Just implementing one solution for one problem really doesn't seem fail-safe enough to me.

On the other hand, someone here mentioned how cheap the Falcon 1 is. At something less than $8 million a pop, Spacex can afford to launch quite a few boiler plates before they run out of money, even if they run out of customers, which doesn't seem to be an immediate danger at this point.

Here's hoping for launch four.

 

[Zatnikitelman]

WOW Just got to watch it myself. Definately one of the more interesting rocket videos I've seen. It does seem like a simple fix of just changing the staging time slightly.

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

Wish they showed more. That looked pretty wild when it started to spin at fairing speration! I hate when things are cut short.

 

[astrosammy]

Damn. I still can't watch it.

 

[pete.dakota]

Wish they showed more. That looked pretty wild when it started to spin at fairing speration! I hate when things are cut short.

It's more likely that the down stream terminated upon destruction of the vehicle. Rather than SpaceX actually editing the video.

 

[GregBurch]

Well, it looks like a simple problem, but it might not be -- all you can see is the "bump" from the first stage ... but that could be a visible symptom of multiple and/or complex problems beyond just staging timing.

Some kind of simple, small solid fuel cheap staging sep motors could solve the problem, along with a timing adjustment ... if that's the only problem.

I agree the roll oscillation doesn't look too bad, but I wonder what's causing it -- control software issues, or something in the roll control hardware?

 

[pete.dakota]

Surely. SURELY they tested the new first stage motor, and noticed residual burning after cut off. I'm no part of SpaceX, and don't claim to know anything more than their engineers do, but it seems that this issue should have been observed and fixed on the ground way before the launch.

I mean, any ground fire test of the new first stage engine would have shown residual burning, right? How this couldn't have been accounted for in the staging timing is beyond me.

 

[Linguofreak]

I mean, any ground fire test of the new first stage engine would have shown residual burning, right? How this couldn't have been accounted for in the staging timing is beyond me.

I'm not sure. It's quite certain that they would not have, and did not, detect any thrust from any residual burning that occured in ground tests ('cause atmospheric pressure swamped out the chamber pressure, as has already been mentioned). It's also quite likely that there would have been less residual burning, on account of things like air being present to cool things down, air pressure stopping flow in fuel lines (which would not have happened in space), etc.

But even without anticipating that particular problem with the engine, they should have anticipated that the engine might for some undefined reason overburn, or the stage timer might by some error be set short, and should have included overrides to deal with that.

Also, couldn't they have done some sort of vacuum chamber test?

 

[tl8]

Also, couldn't they have done some sort of vacuum chamber test?

Remember that the rocket is putting out a s load of gas every second, so unless you have massive fans that constantly extract the gas (which may change the results mind you) then the whole chamber will have gas in it.

 

[DaveS]

For those you who are having difficulties viewing the video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1425923369/bctid1716448357

 

[Thunder Chicken]

It seems to me that they should be implementing several redundant solutions to the problem, ala installing a beefier separation mechanism(difficult and would need testing) or adding a software interlock to prevent staging under acceleration (I would think very easy)--as were mentioned earlier--to be sure that they've really killed it.

Well, you need to be careful adding multiple redundant 'fixes'. You don't want to start adding things that add complexity, that's a great way to introduce bugs. If there is one simple thing they can do to fix it, that is the best option. If it fails, then try one more thing.

 

[thegrogen]

I agree the roll oscillation doesn't look too bad, but I wonder what's causing it -- control software issues, or something in the roll control hardware?

More probably the new regen engine, which I'm told uses a helix-wound nozzle. Musk said that the first-stage flight was "picture-perfect". They probably anticipated the roll torque imparted by the new engine.