{"id":16215,"date":"2015-07-07T19:34:51","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T11:34:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/musk-falcon-9-rocket-failure-a-huge-blow-to-spacex\/"},"modified":"2015-07-07T19:34:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-07T11:34:51","slug":"musk-falcon-9-rocket-failure-a-huge-blow-to-spacex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/musk-falcon-9-rocket-failure-a-huge-blow-to-spacex\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk: Falcon 9 rocket failure a \u201chuge blow\u201d to SpaceX"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SpaceX's
SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket broke apart approximately 139 seconds after launch June 28. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II\/Scriptunas Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speaking publicly for the first time since a Falcon 9 rocket failure that destroyed a Dragon cargo capsule for the International Space Station, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Tuesday that engineers are still piecing together what happened during the June 28 accident in hopes of announcing more details within a few days.<\/p>\n

The rocket failure occurred minutes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral \u2014 the first such mishap in the Falcon 9\u2019s 19 missions to date \u2014 causing the booster to disintegrate 45 kilometers (28 miles) over the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, this is a huge blow to SpaceX, and we take these missions incredibly seriously,\u201d Musk said in a question and answer session Tuesday at an International Space Station conference in Boston. \u201cEveryone that can engage in the investigation at SpaceX is very, very focused on that. In this case, the data does seem to be quite difficult to interpret. Whatever happened is clearly not a simple, straightforward thing, so we want to spend as much time as possible just reviewing the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Echoing earlier statements by SpaceX, Musk said the company has enlisted help from NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and other customers in the investigation.<\/p>\n

He said engineers will \u201clook at both what we think most likely happened, and then anything that\u2019s a close call, and then try to address all of those things and maximize the probability of success on future missions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk hopes to release more details on the failure by the end of this week after further data analysis and engineering reviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, the only thing that\u2019s really clear was there was some kind of over-pressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank, but the exact cause and sequence of events, there\u2019s still no clear theory that fits with all the data,\u201d Musk said. \u201cSo we have to determine if some of the data is a measurement error of some kind, or if there\u2019s actually a theory that matches what appear to be conflicting data points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Musk did not address how long the Falcon 9 rocket might be grounded in the aftermath of the accident while engineers find the cause and implement corrective actions. SpaceX officials have said they informed customers booked to fly on upcoming Falcon 9 launches to expect delays of a few months.<\/p>\n

\"File
File photo of SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk. Credit: Gene Blevins\/LA Daily News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAs soon as we\u2019ve got a clear line on what happened \u2026 we\u2019ll certainly put out that story,\u201d Musk said. \u201cMy only reticence about saying something quite yet is I don\u2019t want to say something that subsequently turns out to be a misunderstanding of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX officials said recovery teams in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Cape Canaveral have retrieved debris from the launch failure, but the wreckage is small and likely holds few clues to the cause of the anomaly. Instead, engineers are focused on analyzing more than 3,000 channels of telemetry, including on-board video sources, to re-construct the flight timeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing that\u2019s needed in the short term is the ability to just gather all the data, and create a very precise timeline, so that, by the millisecond, we know what each sensor was reading, and we can correlate that with ground video,\u201d Musk said. \u201cOne of the biggest challenges is matching things to the exact time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing in milliseconds, all that stuff actually makes quite a bit of difference, so that\u2019s the biggest effort we\u2019ve been engaged in so far \u2014 just creating a super-detailed timeline,\u201d Musk said.<\/p>\n

Michael Suffredini, NASA\u2019s space station program manager, said the research outpost is doing fine without the more than 4,000 pounds of cargo lost aboard SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n

The supplies lost included a new docking ring designed to receive future commercial crew capsules in development by Boeing and SpaceX. A second docking adapter is already built awaiting launch, and spare parts exist to assemble a third unit, officials said.<\/p>\n

A spacesuit, components needed to repair the lab\u2019s water filtration system, food and crew provisions, and experiments also went down in the Dragon spacecraft.<\/p>\n

The Falcon 9 failure was the second in back-to-back failures on missions to resupply the space station. A Russian Progress cargo freighter spun out of control in late April.<\/p>\n

NASA contracted with SpaceX and Orbital ATK to deliver logistics to the space station after the retirement of the space shuttle. Orbital had its own launch failure in October 2014, in which an Antares supply rocket heading for the space station crashed just after blastoff from Virginia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still doing research on ISS, the crew is healthy, the vehicle is healthy, and unfortunately we have lost, in the last eight months, three vehicles,\u201d Suffredini said, adding the failures have had a \u201cbig impact\u201d on the space station program.<\/p>\n

The string of failures since October 2014 came after just one lost mission to the space station in the previous 16 years, a period in which more than 150 launches went up to build and outfit the complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a program, we always assumed we\u2019d lose one or two logistics vehicles and that we\u2019d have to deal with that,\u201d Suffredini said. \u201cNever in my wildest dreams did I imagine we\u2019d lose three in eight months, but you deal with the cards that are dealt, so that\u2019s where we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Progress resupply freighter returned to flight with a successful launch July 3. It docked with the space station two days later with nearly three tons of fuel, oxygen, food and experiments.<\/p>\n

Three new crew members are due to depart for the space station July 22 aboard a Russian Soyuz ferry capsule, raising the lab\u2019s crew back to six residents.<\/p>\n

Then attention turns to a Japanese resupply launch scheduled for Aug. 16. Japan\u2019s HTV cargo freighter is the biggest supply transporter in the space station\u2019s fleet, and Suffredini said managers have adjusted some of the spaceship\u2019s load to make up for items lost on earlier missions.<\/p>\n

He assured researchers that officials made only minor changes to the complement of experiments manifested on the HTV flight, removing some hardware to be used for research next year. That cargo can be flown to the space station on a later mission, Suffredini said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the research on HTV remains,\u201d Suffredini said. \u201cWe did have to modify some of the other supplies to make sure we have everything we needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the end of the year \u2014 even if no SpaceX missions launch \u2014 three more cargo deliveries are on tap. The space station is scheduled to receive two more Progress supply vehicles in September and November, and Orbital ATK\u2019s Cygnus logistics carrier is set for launch in early December aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.<\/p>\n

Orbital ATK contracted with ULA to launch the resupply flight while engineers redesign the company\u2019s Antares booster for new engines in the wake of last year\u2019s launch failure. Officials expect the Antares rocket to resume launching in March 2016.<\/p>\n

Under NASA\u2019s deals with SpaceX and Orbital ATK, the space agency can withhold a final payment to the contractor if a cargo flight fails, but the companies are not required to refly a mission.<\/p>\n

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

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

SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket broke apart approximately 139 seconds after launch June 28. Credit: Walter Scriptunas II\/Scriptunas Images Speaking publicly for the first time since a Falcon 9 rocket failure that destroyed a Dragon cargo capsule for the International Space Station, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Tuesday that engineers are still piecing together what happened […]<\/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":[1395,1045,479,3996,717,1602,316,3971],"class_list":["post-16215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-dragon","tag-elon-musk","tag-falcon-9","tag-falcon-9-flight-20","tag-international-space-station","tag-iss-cargo","tag-spacex","tag-spacex-7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16215"}],"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=16215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16215\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}