This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

SpaceX-Falcon-9

What does information technology accept to stump the real-life Iron Man? An explosion that wasn't an explosion, one without an obvious spark or other ignition source.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket was supposed to launch its 29th mission in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday September 3, carrying the AMOS-6 telecom satellite. The preceding Thursday morning, engineers were preparing for a static fire test, during which the rocket briefly fires its engines while still "docked" to the launch belfry. It's standard procedure to clear all personnel from the pad during fueling and other such dangerous operations, and so even though the strongback is pretty mangled, nobody was hurt. But they were tanking upward the Falcon nine showtime stage with LOX oxidizer and RP-1 kerosene when something went wrong.

spacex fire

"However working on the Falcon fireball investigation," said Musk. "Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we take always had in 14 years."

What'south really stumping people is that the fireball went upwardly without an apparent crusade. The rocket was nowhere near its ignition sequence. The engines weren't on, and in that location shouldn't have been anything hot enough to cause a deflagration. Considering it was hooked up to the strongback past all those cables and hoses, it should have been electrically grounded. And at that place was a quieter "bang" sound simply moments before the fireball. Despite the fact that SpaceX equipment is positively bristling with 3,000 channels worth of sensors and telemetry, nobody knows yet what happened. Some commenters, here and elsewhere, have fifty-fifty suggested sabotage.

The non knowing won't last long, though. Elon Musk is reaching out to anyone and everyone who has expertise or A/5 recordings of the event. And aerospace is a unique surround when it comes to tracking the source of a problem. An engineer who's afraid of losing his job is much less probable to come forward virtually an error he knows he committed, especially i that led to the loss of a $threescore million rocket and its $200 million payload.

Hopefully SpaceX et al. volition hold to these principles, although much will depend on who sues whom and for how much. SpaceX could probably swallow the cost of the rocket, just the stakeholders of the AMOS-6 satellite are singing a different tune. The successful installation of AMOS-half dozen was the linchpin in a virtually $300 million merger betwixt Spacecom, an Israeli communications firm, and the Chinese Xinwei Technology Grouping. Spacecom manifestly didn't accept its satellite insured for disasters that happened earlier launch. It could sue SpaceX for the sticker price of the satellite, or demand a gratis ride to infinite in one case the replacement satellite and a new, space-worthy rocket are built. Marking Zuckerberg, whose internet.org project was supposed to use AMOS-6, is but "disappointed."