{"id":15207,"date":"2016-09-23T19:41:13","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T11:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/falcon-9-rocket-explosion-traced-to-upper-stage-helium-system-2\/"},"modified":"2016-09-23T19:41:13","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T11:41:13","slug":"falcon-9-rocket-explosion-traced-to-upper-stage-helium-system-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/falcon-9-rocket-explosion-traced-to-upper-stage-helium-system-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcon 9 rocket explosion traced to upper stage helium system"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Credit:
Credit: US Launch Report<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The investigation into a dramatic Falcon 9 rocket explosion earlier this month at Cape Canaveral has determined a \u201clarge breach\u201d in the launcher\u2019s upper stage helium pressurization system led to the destruction of the booster and its $200 million satellite payload, SpaceX said Friday.<\/p>\n

Officials said returning to flight \u201csafely and reliably\u201d with the Falcon 9 rocket, a critical vehicle for NASA\u2019s commercial crew and cargo program for the International Space Station, is SpaceX\u2019s top priority.<\/p>\n

The inquiry, led by SpaceX with assistance from government and industry experts, is still looking into the cause of the breach, which may be only a symptom and not the root of the Sept. 1 mishap. The spectacular explosion occurred as the 23-story rocket was being fueled for a preflight engine firing at Cape Canaveral\u2019s Complex 40 launch pad.<\/p>\n

In an update posted to SpaceX\u2019s website Friday, the company said only 93 milliseconds passed from the first signs of an anomaly to the loss of data. The Accident Investigation Team, composed of representatives from SpaceX, the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, the U.S. Air Force and industry experts, is analyzing approximately 3,000 channels of engineering data, along with video, audio and imagery, the company said.<\/p>\n

Most of the debris scattered by the explosion has been recovered, photographed, labeled, catalogued and moved to a hangar for inspection, SpaceX said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this stage of the investigation, preliminary review of the data and debris suggests that a large breach in the cryogenic helium system of the second stage liquid oxygen tank took place,\u201d SpaceX said. \u201cAll plausible causes are being tracked in an extensive fault tree and carefully investigated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rocket\u2019s payload \u2014 the Amos 6 communications satellite owned by Israel\u2019s Spacecom Ltd. \u2014 was mounted on top of the Falcon 9 for mock countdown. Amos 6 was due to launch two days after the accident.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9 rocket\u2019s upper stage liquid oxygen tank contains several composite helium vessels, each pressurized to about 5,500 pounds per square inch in flight. The helium is routed through the second stage\u2019s Merlin engine, where the helium warms up and is injected into the rocket\u2019s propellant tanks to pressurize the stage as the launcher burns fuel, keeping the tanks structurally sound.<\/p>\n

While cryogenic helium was aboard the Falcon 9 at the time of the explosion, the mishap occurred around eight minutes before the rocket\u2019s main engines were scheduled to ignite for the on-the-pad \u201cstatic fire\u201d test Sept. 1.<\/p>\n

At that point in the countdown, the propellant tanks are normally not pressurized for launch.<\/p>\n

The explosion on the launch pad is the second time SpaceX has lost a Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n

In June 2015, a Falcon 9 booster disintegrated about two minutes after liftoff with a Dragon supply ship heading to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s probe of that failure concluded it was probably caused by a weakened strut holding one of the helium tanks inside the second stage\u2019s liquid oxygen tank. The bracket fractured under the high acceleration of launch and one of the helium tanks broke free immersed inside the upper stage\u2019s reservoir of super-cold liquid oxygen, the company said last year.<\/p>\n

The tank over-pressurized and ruptured as the helium spilled from its composite container, according to SpaceX, which said it would no longer use the same type of strut \u2014 provided by an external suppler \u2014 in future launches.<\/p>\n

Despite the close proximity of the failure modes in both accidents, SpaceX said investigators \u201chave exonerated any connection with last year\u2019s CRS-7 mishap,\u201d referring to the name of the failed flight in June 2015.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s statement Friday offered no details on how engineers concluded the accidents shared no linkage.<\/p>\n

\"Diagram
Diagram of the Falcon 9 rocket\u2019s upper stage. Credit: SpaceX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, ground crews at Cape Canaveral are examining the damage at Complex 40, SpaceX\u2019s primary launch pad. The company said \u201csubstantial areas of the pad systems were affected\u201d by the explosion, but several key pieces of ground equipment escaped major damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Falcon Support Building adjacent to the pad was unaffected, and per standard procedure was unoccupied at the time of the anomaly,\u201d SpaceX said. \u201cThe new liquid oxygen farm \u2013 e.g. the tanks and plumbing that hold our super-chilled liquid oxygen \u2013 was unaffected and remains in good working order.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holding tanks and pumps for the launch pad\u2019s RP-1 kerosene fueling system were \u201clargely unaffected\u201d and the pad\u2019s control systems are in relatively good condition, SpaceX said.<\/p>\n

Contrary to initial reports, the company confirmed no debris left the immediate area of Complex 40 during the explosion.<\/p>\n

Construction at nearby launch pad 39A, a former space shuttle launch complex at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center a few miles north of Complex 40, is on track to have the facility ready to support Falcon 9 flights in November. SpaceX leases pad 39A from NASA.<\/p>\n

SpaceX\u2019s Payload Processing Facility, a renovated Titan rocket assembly building, is also fully operational. It is located a few miles to the south of Complex 40.<\/p>\n

Officials said SpaceX\u2019s rocket factory in Hawthorne, California, continues producing Merlin engines, Falcon rocket tanks and other systems in a \u201cmethodical manner\u201d as the components are cleared by the investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will work to resume our manifest as quickly as responsible once the cause of the anomaly has been identified by the Accident Investigation Team,\u201d SpaceX said. \u201cPending the results of the investigation, we anticipate returning to flight as early as the November timeframe.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX has not announced what payload will fly on the next Falcon 9 launch, or whether the mission will blast off from pad 39A in Florida or a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit: US Launch Report The investigation into a dramatic Falcon 9 rocket explosion earlier this month at Cape Canaveral has determined a \u201clarge breach\u201d in the launcher\u2019s upper stage helium pressurization system led to the destruction of the booster and its $200 million satellite payload, SpaceX said Friday. Officials said returning to flight \u201csafely and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3143,1736,479,316],"class_list":["post-15207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amos-6","tag-complex-40","tag-falcon-9","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15207"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}