A supply mission to the International Space Station has broken up shortly after launch:
I suspect that the accident happened because SpaceX doesn’t adhere to the NASA test protocols (system test has to be done for any modification). This is extremely expensive and time consuming. Since the rocket was destroyed, analysis of the failure may not be possible. might be something as simple as using a commercial grade component, might be not.
A friend of mine was out there watching the launch and posting pictures. Says he missed the explosion by a few seconds.
That’s silly. SpaceX’s telemetry systems are as good as anyone. They’ll figure it out.
Musk’s tweets indicate an overpressurization event in the upper stage LOX tank, which appears consistent with the video. Could be a failure with the helium system, or pressure relief valves, or even just structural failure (unanticipated aerodynamic stresses, etc.). SpaceX actually puts a camera in the tank, so the failure mode may end up being really obvious.
Will be interesting to see how many failures the government is willing to put up with in order to manufacture “competition” for ULA - you know, the guys who DON’T crash their rockets. Go Vulcan!
Amazing what private enterprise can do once it gets out from under the oppressive thumb of government. Maybe it’s time to rethink the paradigm of having private corporations build spacecraft.
Curiously, SpaceX is exempted from a great deal of the government’s “oppression”, yet they still keep crashing.
I’m not sure what you suggest - do you think spacecraft ought to be built by the government rather than private industry as is currently the case?
I think his point was that government has a better launch record than private space companies, in spite of the fact that there is nothing government can do right.
I’m not sure what you even mean by “keep crashing”. This is the first complete failure* of a Falcon 9.
For a completely new launch vehicle, one failure out of 19 launches is actually a pretty good record.
*there was an earlier partial failure, where an engine malfunction prevented deployment of a secondary payload. The primary payload, the first Dragon cargo mission to the ISS, was completely successful.
Yeah, for years we used to hear about how inefficient government was and how the space industry would bear wondrous profitable fruit if only we would free them from government oversight. SpaceShipOne in 2004 achieved what NASA’s Mercury program did over 40 years earlier, not exactly impressive in my book. It’s true that NASA had some spectacular failures in its early years and the Shuttle was ultimately an unsafe vehicle, but the failure rate of private launches seems to me to be unacceptably high. I think space privatization is turning out to be a turkey and we should return to having corporations build spaceships under contract to and oversight from NASA.
I don’t see a problem with unmanned spacecraft blowing up as long as it’s not endangering people on the ground. Practical rockets are going to remain very dangerous until there’s some major technological sea change so it’s up to the private companies to consider the risk in cost, and if failures like this help them move towards economical space flight faster then it shouldn’t be a great public concern. As it is the advancement of space flight technology has been held back by the concentration on manned missions. Frankly I’d like to see them working harder on unmanned space utilization and exploration of space until technology does reach the point where manned missions are safer and more practical.
Pffffttttt.
The NASA Space Shuttle did way better than that.
Yeah like TriPolar says I don’t see the issue so long as people aren’t put in danger. SpaceX can blow up 30 million dollars every day for all I care, since they are a private company they are just blowing up their own money (I’m sure any government property blown up by them will have to be refunded by them as well). This will convince them to sort out the issues right quick or they’ll go bankrupt. Either way the problem of exploding rockets will be solved.
They have launch insurance.
I’ll bet their premiums just went up 
Not a lot better, at least in the initial days. The Challenger disaster was only the 25th shuttle launch. There was also an Abort To Orbit in an earlier mission, which ended up as mostly-successful but certainly not flawless.
So the Falcon 9 record as of its first failure is 18/19 = 95% success, while the Shuttle’s record as of its first failure is 24/25 = 96% success.
Granted, in the long run and even with the subsequent Columbia disaster, the Shuttle had 133/135 successful missions. That’s a stellar record for a heavy lift vehicle but it’s hard to be proud of that when it includes the two worst spaceflight accidents in history.
For comparison, the Delta II had a partial failure on its 52nd launch, and a complete failure on its 65th. The Delta III failed in 2 out of 3 launches before it was cancelled, and the first Delta IV Heavy launch was a failure. In the Atlas family, the Atlas I had a rocky start with 3 failures in its first 11 launches, though the Atlas II and III have flawless records and the V has only one partial failure. Then there are plenty of other rocket families that started with far worse than a 95% success rate.
(Besides, statistically speaking there’s bugger all difference between 1/19 and 1/25 or 1/65 failures.)
Back to the matter of commercial launch services: for unmanned cargo vehicles, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to use cheap but potentially less reliable launches. I’d rather NASA pay $130 million per launch at an 86% success rate (the current SpaceX track record for the Commercial Resupply Services program) than, say, $200 million per launch for a 98% successful Atlas V plus a several billion for NASA to develop and build a new cargo vehicle.
I think space launch poses an interesting issue of monopoly vs competition, and governmental regulation.
-My personal opinion is that there are some industries in which you could make an awfully good argument that monopolies are the most desireable system. Not sure this thread is the appropriate place to debate that, tho.
-If it is decided that increased competition is desireable, then there could be a complicated discussion of how best to attain the desired level of competition. I’m not sure it is a viable long-term solution to have the different “competitors” working under different rules, or to allow the newcomer to cherry pick the most profitable markets.
Personally, I’m awfully impressed w/ ULA’s consistently strong track record. I am very confident if their regulations were loosened, they would be able to provide a wider range of services at lower prices.
I also think Elon Musk is a very impressive businessman and PR person. It surprises me, though, the extent to which so many people seem to view his primary motivation as something other than profit.
He earned his first fortune from Paypal. I think if he had been primarily interested in profit, he’d have stayed in the realm of internet venture capital, which has offered quite outsized profits lately.
That he choose to start an electric car company and a space travel company, two incredibly risky and capital-intensive concepts with potentially major positive payoffs for the human race suggests to me profit is not his primary motivation.