Not a good couple of days for small launch:
There’s that word again…
I like the “shut down prematurely” with no mention of what happens / happened next. No need to upset the Gentle Reader with such messy information.
In the next post I like “fires have subsided”. As in “too many and too big for the fire service to deal with. Just like with a volcano, there’s nothing to be done. We wait until it stops of its own volition.”
My nephew (who used to work for SpaceX) works for ABL. He wasn’t there for the launch but he’s going to be busy for the next couple of weeks/months.
Offer some condolences from the SDMB!
I’m not aware of any organization that got to orbit with their first rocket on the first flight (ULA and the ESA are seeming exceptions, but were just reformed from other organizations that had already made plenty of mistakes). So they have good company.
New (first) pic from ShadowCam, which is designed to take pictures of very dark (i.e. shadowed craters) spots on the Moon:
http://shadowcam.sese.asu.edu/images/1284
Brian
I’m curious about how they pulled this off photographically. I suppose it was shot when that whole area was in darkness otherwise the section illuminated by the sun would be ridiculously over-exposed. I guess the most modern photographic sensors have gotten ridiculously good at producing low noise images at high ISOs.
It’s a combination of low noise electronics, good cooling, large pixels and a fast lens. We’re getting really good at building such cameras.
I guess the little illumination they get is residual reflection from the lit rim and maybe starlight.
ABL explains RS1 failure
As of L+7, we have identified multiple fact patterns of interest. Notably, we saw off-nominal pressure spikes and rises in temperature in the Stage 1 aft cavity a few seconds after liftoff. Additionally, there is some visual evidence of fire or smoke near the vehicle QD and the engine bay after liftoff. Shortly before the power loss, a handful of sensors began dropping out sequentially. This evidence suggests that an unwanted fire spread to our avionics system, causing a system-wide failure.
Something a bit different:
The Electron is a relatively small rocket, capable of putting only a few hundred kilograms into orbit, so the launch experience is very different from massive vehicles like the Shuttle, SLS, and Falcon Heavy. It’s quite a bit smaller than even the Falcon 9.
I love to see the competition. Can’t wait to see their larger reusable rocket fly.
Because of course you only want to set your avionics on fire in a deliberate and controlled manner😁
I kinda laughed at the phrasing too, but it’s accurate. They didn’t say the avionics system had an unwanted fire. They said that an unwanted fire in an unspecified location spread to the avionics. Since some parts of a rocket engine are supposed to be on fire, making the distinction actually does narrow down the possibilities.
ETA: Ninja’d by a few seconds. Drat!!
Although as my pilot Dad used to say: You want, nay you need, a big fire in your engine. But it needs to stay inside, not outside.
The launch folks were very happy to have a big fire. Just not where it wasn’t wanted = was unwanted.
Engineers have always had such a way with words when stuff goes awry.
I let ChatGPT have a go at the incident:
Summary
[Interviewer:] This rocket that was involved in the incident in Kodiak, Alaska this week…
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Yeah, the one where the avionics bay caught on fire?
[Interviewer:] Yes
[ABL Space Systems representative:] That’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.
[Interviewer:] Well, how is it untypical?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well, there are a lot of these rockets launching all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen… I just don’t want people thinking that our rockets aren’t safe.
[Interviewer:] Was this rocket safe?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well I was thinking more about the other ones…
[Interviewer:] The ones that are safe.
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Yeah, the ones where the avionics bay doesn’t catch on fire.
[Interviewer:] Well, if this wasn’t safe, why did it have a payload on it?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well, I’m not saying it wasn’t safe, it’s just perhaps not quite as safe as some of the other ones.
[Interviewer:] Why?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well, some of them are built so the avionics bay doesn’t catch on fire at all.
[Interviewer:] Wasn’t this built so the avionics bay wouldn’t catch on fire?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well, obviously not.
[Interviewer:] How do you know?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well, 'cause the avionics bay caught on fire, and the payload was lost. It’s a bit of a give-away. I would just like to make the point that that is not normal.
[Interviewer:] Well, what sort of standards are these rockets built to?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Oh, very rigorous… aerospace engineering standards.
[Interviewer:] What sort of things?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well the avionics bay’s not supposed to catch on fire, for a start.
[Interviewer:] And what other things?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well, there are… regulations governing the materials they can be made of
[Interviewer:] What materials?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well, cardboard’s out
[Interviewer:] And?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] No cardboard derivatives
[Interviewer:] Like paper?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] No paper, no string, no cellotape.
[Interviewer:] Rubber?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] No, rubber’s out. Um, They’ve got to have a guidance system. There’s a minimum crew requirement.
[Interviewer:] What’s the minimum crew?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Oh, one, I suppose.
[Interviewer:] So, the allegations that they are just designed to carry as much payload as possible and to hell with the consequences, I mean that’s ludicrous.
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. These are very, very strong vessels.
[Interviewer:] So what happened in this case?
[ABL Space Systems representative:] Well, the avionics bay caught on fire in this case by all means, but that’s very unusual.
[Interviewer:] But ABL Space Systems representative, why did the avionics bay catch on fire?
Well ChatGPT is just a plagiarist apparently.
I may have helped it along a bit…
Some Apollo 13 vibes here:
Yeah I would say you know Joel said very well and when this first happened we started looking at, like we always do in spaceflight, okay what is available, what could work and so we figured out this cargo area might be about the right size to put a seat liner and a crew member down in this area. And then we went off and analyzed all the different things that we needed to have in place. Is the airflow acceptable? Can we maintain carbon dioxide scrubbing and all those sorts of things. Do we have enough Oxygen and supplies for them?
And we figured that was out, and then, you know, we looked at how would we position the seat liner as perfect to restrain the crew member in this area. To keep Frank safe. So we looked at taking some cargo straps from actually the CRS-26 vehicle. Those fit very well on the pallet. We were able to put the straps over Frank and then the seat liner if we needed to. And then secure him to the floor of the Dragon. And then we looked at is it going to be okay to land in this configuration? Should we do that? And we went and did all the kinds of analysis we do in terms of accelerations for the crew member. And those all came back acceptable and so we convinced ourselves it was a good posture to be in for this contingency as Joel said if we really would have to evacuate ISS. And then, you know, we could actually accommodate two more crew members in this cargo pallet area if we needed to.
In short, while the unmanned Soyuz is still set to go up as a replacement for the leaky MS-22, they’re still looking at contingency plans in case something else goes wrong. And it sounds like strapping one of them in the cargo area of a Crew Dragon is an option. Plus two cosmonauts if it really came down to it.
BTW, the article title is misleading. This is purely ground testing for the possible contingency.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the Columbia space shuttle disaster:
Any reflections? When I was young I thought there was going to be a massive explosion of manned space flight–and I was wrong.