Video Of The SpaceX Explosion

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Now I'm not one for conspiracy theories but, if you ask me, I think Facebook's satellite is responsible for the explosion. If you watch closely at the 1:11 minute mark, just as the explosion happens, you can see a person (most likely Mark Zuckerberg), jumping to safety and running away from the blast. At least that's what I saw. ;)
 
Looks to me like it may have been some sort of valve shorted out.. possibly one that was a shutoff for the fuel from the location for where the "steam" was coming from before the explosion.

In any case, something sparked that shouldn't have.
 
Did NASA have this many failures getting their rockets into space or are we in an age where we just get more news about things like this?
 
Hazard said:
Did NASA have this many failures getting their rockets into space or are we in an age where we just get more news about things like this?
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Honestly SpaceX has had very few failures/accidents in comparison to other space programs.

Here's a few lists of accidents that have happened in the past of spaceflight:
List of spaceflight-related accidents and incidents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spaceflight non-fatal training accidents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I wonder how much something like this increases your Satellite insurance premiums? I can't even imagine what the actuary tables like this must be like.
 
Taken moments before the explosion:

3z9D82f.jpg
 
Its unfortunate that an insect zoomed past the lens the instant it blew up. Because conspiracy theories will abound. Either that, or Aliens are real. Need another camera angle to verify.
 
Hazard said:
Did NASA have this many failures getting their rockets into space or are we in an age where we just get more news about things like this?
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Oh hell yeah. The death toll was fairly atrocious, the amount of actual equipment destroyed to get men into space was just awe inspiring...
 
The part that puzzles me is, why was the multi-million dollar satellite on board when they did the test.

That almost sounds suspicious to me. Suspicious as in "The satellite was a failure, let's blow it up and collect insurance money" or something like that.

You don't test to see if the thing that might go boom works, while having your expensive payload loaded.

It would be like doing water cooling leak testing with your PC powered on...
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The part that puzzles me is, why was the multi-million dollar satellite on board when they did the test.

That almost sounds suspicious to me. Suspicious as in "The satellite was a failure, let's blow it up and collect insurance money" or something like that.

You don't test to see if the thing that might go boom works, while having your expensive payload loaded.

It would be like doing water cooling leak testing with your PC powered on...
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Yea this seems like exactly the time to put a stack of steel bricks equivalent in weight to the vehicle in the nose cone.....NOT an actual launch vehicle.

Then again, I'm not a certified rocket scientist.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The part that puzzles me is, why was the multi-million dollar satellite on board when they did the test.

That almost sounds suspicious to me. Suspicious as in "The satellite was a failure, let's blow it up and collect insurance money" or something like that.

You don't test to see if the thing that might go boom works, while having your expensive payload loaded.

It would be like doing water cooling leak testing with your PC powered on...
Click to expand...

These things get tested hundreds of times prior to launch in every different configuration. If you test it before you stick the payload on top, you'd have to test it again afterwards just to make sure you didn't mess anything up when loading the payload. Every change comes with more tests. If you did it with a simulated payload, you'd have to do it again with the real payload.

By the last report, this happened during fueling prior to the static-fire test.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The part that puzzles me is, why was the multi-million dollar satellite on board when they did the test.

That almost sounds suspicious to me. Suspicious as in "The satellite was a failure, let's blow it up and collect insurance money" or something like that.

You don't test to see if the thing that might go boom works, while having your expensive payload loaded.

It would be like doing water cooling leak testing with your PC powered on...
Click to expand...

It's a good question, and I are not a rocket scientist, but it might be to see if the payload can withstand the initial forces applied to it by the rocket start up. That's just a guess though.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The part that puzzles me is, why was the multi-million dollar satellite on board when they did the test.

That almost sounds suspicious to me. Suspicious as in "The satellite was a failure, let's blow it up and collect insurance money" or something like that.

You don't test to see if the thing that might go boom works, while having your expensive payload loaded.

It would be like doing water cooling leak testing with your PC powered on...
Click to expand...

streamlining the launch process. It adds at least a day or more (likely several) to pull the rocket down, bring it inside & mate the payload. And rockets just don't explode on the pad like they did in the 60's, so the risk seemed pretty low. You want to test in ready to go config.
 
You're splitting hairs brother plus I don't disagree with you, but I was merely showing an example of NASA's failures during the Apollo missions.
 
Its almost funny how rocket fuel never melted the steal! Is that the rocket support structure still standing lol
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The part that puzzles me is, why was the multi-million dollar satellite on board when they did the test.

That almost sounds suspicious to me. Suspicious as in "The satellite was a failure, let's blow it up and collect insurance money" or something like that.

You don't test to see if the thing that might go boom works, while having your expensive payload loaded.

It would be like doing water cooling leak testing with your PC powered on...
Click to expand...

Im sure they probably don't care. Losing a couple of multi-million dollar satellites for them is like losing pocket change. Expect the person overseeing the launch to layoff about 100 employees in order get back into fiscal green and make his million dollar bonus.
 
Wiffle said:
Im sure they probably don't care. Losing a couple of multi-million dollar satellites for them is like losing pocket change. Expect the person overseeing the launch to layoff about 100 employees in order get back into fiscal green and make his million dollar bonus.
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lol, the satellite costs 200 million, which is probably more than spacex makes in a year with their current pricing.
 
Zuckerberg's dream for Spacebook has had a setback... :p
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
The part that puzzles me is, why was the multi-million dollar satellite on board when they did the test.

That almost sounds suspicious to me. Suspicious as in "The satellite was a failure, let's blow it up and collect insurance money" or something like that.

You don't test to see if the thing that might go boom works, while having your expensive payload loaded.

It would be like doing water cooling leak testing with your PC powered on...
Click to expand...

Completely agree, you run 1000 sims first (think of the gpu power your own pc has) and then physical with dummy loads. I just read this was a test, so yeah, weird. I hope it comes out its fake! I swear this feels like the start of skynet and we just averted total annihilation, maybe someone from the future stopped it? Zuckface looks like a total robot and I know for a fact he does not have humanity's best intentions in mind...so. Next time I guess.
 
Mugato said:
Completely agree, you run 1000 sims first (think of the gpu power your own pc has) and then physical with dummy loads. I just read this was a test, so yeah, weird. I hope it comes out its fake! I swear this feels like the start of skynet and we just averted total annihilation, maybe someone from the future stopped it? Zuckface looks like a total robot and I know for a fact he does not have humanity's best intentions in mind...so. Next time I guess.
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you guys realize they do this static fire with every launch, right?
 
Skripka said:
All sides did. NASA is more well known for it, because NASA's attempts were public record and not under lock and key like say the Soviets.
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True. A few of the Soviet ones led to loss of life. The March 1980 Cosmodrome explosion - during fueling - killed around 48 people. That particular rocket model, a Vostok 2m, supposedly had 92 successful flights, 1 failure on launch, and the refueling explosion. Earlier variants had upwards of 10-15% failure rates (not including the earliest, with a 25%).

There's also the N1 explosion, which was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever.

The west didn't find out about these until the Soviet Union fell.
 
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NASA's spectacular fails probably includes the following 3:

1. Apollo 13 incident, it's a miracle that the crew made it back safely.

2. 1980 Challenger disaster, which made the world aware that management is very dangerously detached from reality (Feynman's quote: "Science must take precedence before any public relations, for mother nature cannot be fooled")

3. Colombia 2003 disaster, made famous in the hindsight because NASA management failed to learn the lessons of 2003, again, due to detachment of science, though in fairness, I don't think the Engineers were aware that a piece of foam could doom a shuttle, now they do.

Space travel is still very dangerous because mankind simply have not traveled enough, unlike air travel these days, so accidents like this can happen (early days of air travel were plagued with accidents, it was considered a risk travelling by air).
 
From the Wall St. Journal:

Rocket Explosion Leaves Facebook’s Internet Initiative Grounded
Satellite destroyed in SpaceX blast was intended to expand online access in sub-Saharan Africa

In news elsewhere on the planet:

3748c571b54655e4bb672d0dc55049c0.jpg
 
Watching the video and looking at the schematics of the falcon rocket, it looks like the explosion happened in the second stage fuel tanks. There is cryo steam coming from the upper stage, so it looks like they were putting LOX in there (afaik the fuel is aviation fuel, so not cryogenic. I guess they load that first?). I think there was a valve leak for the upper fuel tank, and maybe also oxygen leaking from the LOX connector, and once the LOX warmed up in the internal compartment, the fuel could auto-ignite and rupture the tanks, leading to a bigger explosion.

I would say this isn't the first time a rocket failed during fuelling. Cryo liquids often seem to push materials beyond their expected limits.

It does mean the reused lower stage was not the issue, which is a good thing.

Edit: I just read that Musk confirmed the issue seemed to stem from the upper stage LOX tank.
 
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Its weird how real life is so different than movies that it seems "unnatural"

Michael Bay would have triggered the sound explosion at the time of the blast, while JJ Abrahams would have lens flare all over it (but that's another issue)

In real life the sound took quite a while to reach the camera/microphone. It so weird that at first it seems the sound is muted, but then it feels like its way out of phase.
 
Chas said:
Oh hell yeah. The death toll was fairly atrocious, the amount of actual equipment destroyed to get men into space was just awe inspiring...
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Most if the lessons learned happened decades ago. You dont see the failure rate that spacex has in modern times with the big space companies. You still see failures (we had the antares and leo 46 fail, for various stupid reasons) but for the most part the knowledge and process controls are already in place. Spacex is just relearning what we learned years ago.
 
workshop35 said:
Most if the lessons learned happened decades ago. You dont see the failure rate that spacex has in modern times with the big space companies. You still see failures (we had the antares and leo 46 fail, for various stupid reasons) but for the most part the knowledge and process controls are already in place. Spacex is just relearning what we learned years ago.
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Actually you don't see a lot of failures happen because the big space companies aren't really big space companies anymore.

Most of our orbital transit is done via Russia now. And their failure rates, even today, are HIDEOUS compared to what the US paid. Both in terms of equipment and blood. You just don't hear about it because it's the Russians.
 
workshop35 said:
Most if the lessons learned happened decades ago. You dont see the failure rate that spacex has in modern times with the big space companies. You still see failures (we had the antares and leo 46 fail, for various stupid reasons) but for the most part the knowledge and process controls are already in place. Spacex is just relearning what we learned years ago.
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This is correct. ULA has a much higher success rate. But you also pay through the nose for their success rate. (like 5->7x's the cost in some instances)
 
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