ISTM the big question there is how big and how many are the chunks that might reasonably reach the surface? Which of course is a function of apogee, vehicle geometry, etc. Plus whether the failure to relight results in no fire at all, or major explodiness,
The few Dragon parts that have landed intact suggests that maybe big chunks are a possibility.
Not quite what I was expecting. Not a Dragon XL, but pretty far off from a stock Dragon:
No SuperDracos. Extended trunk–looks to be about 2x the length. And zillions of engines on the end, which I expect are Dracos with extended nozzles. I guess they wanted better throttling and lower cosine losses.
Cosine losses? Why wouldn’t the nozzles point straight back in the first place?
I initially speculated that they’d just use the existing SuperDracos on a Crew Dragon to reduce development effort. But those point outward by a fair amount:
They also have relatively small nozzles for their level of thrust.
When did Command Modules start getting called “trunks”? If there’s a tower escape system, is that a “frunk”?
It’s just SpaceX terminology. A LES tower wouldn’t be a frunk unless you could put something in it 
.
The trunk on Dragon is usually filled with cargo that doesn’t need to be pressurized. Stuff that gets fitted to the outside of the space station, like their new roll-up solar panels. It has some other purposes as well, like providing surface area for the solar panels, but it isn’t filled with the usual service module equipment.
Happy Moon Landing Day
Huzzah for the brave astronauts of Apollo 11!
Not exactly space news, but NASA apparently considers the [a] to be canonical, even though it didn’t seem to be there:
It’s probably for the best if we all just pretend that he said it.
The Master Speaks, 34 years ago!
Momentary radio dropouts of sound were not unknown during the Apollo missions. I’m prepared to believe that Armstrong said what he meant to say.
Between momentary radio dropouts and the vagaries of sound activated microphones in the bad old days of analog electronics, I could easily see the radio unkeying during a breath, then the first syllable of the next phrase is lost because the sound activation feature didn’t “hear” it, or took enough milliseconds to key the mike that it was never transmitted.
Back when we had voice-activated intercoms in airplanes it was common to learn to preface every utterance with “Uhhh” solely to key the mike, followed by whatever you really wanted to say.
Plus hey, give the man a break, this is not what you’d call a low-stress environment.
55 years and Og knows when/if it will be tried again… sure, it was a geopolitical Cold War flex — but you know what? This is the sort of flex one respects.
So I was right all along, that’s where that came from.
Dang, I thought that was one of those linguistic accommodation things like vocal fry or high rising terminal (Valley Girl speak). And maybe it is, but it’s interesting that it has practical utility as well.
Pretty quick:
SpaceX submitted its mishap report to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regarding Falcon 9’s launch anomaly on July 11, 2024. SpaceX’s investigation team, with oversight from the FAA, was able to identify the most probable cause of the mishap and associated corrective actions to ensure the success of future missions.
Post-flight data reviews confirmed Falcon 9’s first stage booster performed nominally through ascent, stage separation, and a successful droneship landing. During the first burn of Falcon 9’s second stage engine, a liquid oxygen leak developed within the insulation around the upper stage engine. The cause of the leak was identified as a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicle’s oxygen system. This line cracked due to fatigue caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line. Despite the leak, the second stage engine continued to operate through the duration of its first burn, and completed its engine shutdown, where it entered the coast phase of the mission in the intended elliptical parking orbit.
A second burn of the upper stage engine was planned to circularize the orbit ahead of satellite deployment. However, the liquid oxygen leak on the upper stage led to the excessive cooling of engine components, most importantly those associated with delivery of ignition fluid to the engine. As a result, the engine experienced a hard start rather than a controlled burn, which damaged the engine hardware and caused the upper stage to subsequently lose attitude control. Even so, the second stage continued to operate as designed, deploying the Starlink satellites and successfully completing stage passivation, a process of venting down stored energy on the stage, which occurs at the conclusion of every Falcon mission.
Following deployment, the Starlink team made contact with 10 of the satellites to send early burn commands in an attempt to raise their altitude. Unfortunately, the satellites were in an enormously high-drag environment with a very low perigee of only 135 km above the Earth. As a result, all 20 Starlink satellites from this launch re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere. By design, Starlink satellites fully demise upon reentry, posing no threat to public safety. To-date, no debris has been reported after the successful deorbit of Starlink satellites.
SpaceX engineering teams have performed a comprehensive and thorough review of all SpaceX vehicles and ground systems to ensure we are putting our best foot forward as we return to flight. For near term Falcon launches, the failed sense line and sensor on the second stage engine will be removed. The sensor is not used by the flight safety system and can be covered by alternate sensors already present on the engine. The design change has been tested at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas, with enhanced qualification analysis and oversight by the FAA and involvement from the SpaceX investigation team. An additional qualification review, inspection, and scrub of all sense lines and clamps on the active booster fleet led to a proactive replacement in select locations.
Safety and reliability are at the core of SpaceX’s operations. It would not have been possible to achieve our current cadence without this focus, and thanks to the pace we’ve been able to launch, we’re able to gather unprecedented levels of flight data and are poised to rapidly return to flight, safely and with increased reliability. Our missions are of critical importance – safely carrying astronauts, customer payloads, and thousands of Starlink satellites to orbit – and they rely on the Falcon family of rockets being one of the most reliable in the world. We thank the FAA and our customers for their ongoing work and support.
Damn sensors! This one wasn’t even necessary. They failed to abide by Musk’s “the best part is no part.”
Here’s an interesting tidbit @John_DiFool found & posted elsewhere:
A cool view of some space junk:
If I read the article right JAXA funds a commercial company for work in removing orbiting debris in the framework of a JAXA demonstration project. Otherwise nobody would be incentivised to do this.
Is there a general legal/financial framework in development, for financing deorbiting of debris by commercial companies?
Do the parties that originally sent these objects into orbit have any legal obligation to contribute to deorbiting them?
Although not decided yet there is an increasing possibility Butch and Suni return on a Crew Dragon:
I get a little more worried, the more time passes and NASA still doesn’t seem to be able to decide.