SpaceX Tuesday...

[Mojocvh]

Ah.. the fairing at the base is being burnt through from the inside?

Good Spot Eric!

[Eric Mc]

I'm not convinced myself - but it did seem a bit odd what has happening.

[CrutyRammers]

MartG said:

Some are reporting that Range Safety blew it up after it started going off course - if true then the cloud of propellant would be formed after the safety explosives ruptured the tanks

If that's the case, I'm surprised it took so long to explode. A full 9 seconds from when the first puff appeared at the top. And with the engines continuing on full thrust. Seems a bit odd to me, but then we shall see I'm sure.

Edit - though it would make some sense in the light of the images above.

[Russ35]

Elon Musk said:

There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counter intuitive cause.

And Upcoming non-SpaceX resupply:
3 Jul : Progress M on Soyuz-U
16 Aug : HTV on H-IIB
21 Nov : Progress MS on Soyuz-2.1a
3rd Dec : Cygnus on Atlas V

[Mojocvh]

Just watched the final moments again full sized it does seem that the vehicle had some kind of mechanical failure near the top half of the structure...

...@ 00:17 of video below there is an object in the "cloud" of fuel... best seen full screen...

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4326637139001/unmanned-...

[MartG]

Press conference live

http://livestream.com/spacex/events/4152712?origin...

[Caruso]

SpaceX had such an impressive record that it's a great shame for this to happen. They are saying 2nd stage over-pressure event just prior to 1st stage cutoff. Perhaps a problem with priming the 2nd stage ahead of firing? I wonder if it was mechanical, electrical or software fault? I'll plump for electrical i.e. sensor related as they said they had some counter-intuitive data. But it's all just supposition at this stage.

[Eric Mc]

Straight away they seem to be confirming a second stage pressurisiation problem.

[MartG]

Yes - no further technical info other than it was definitely the 2nd stage which suffered a failure. They even received telemetry from the Dragon spacecraft after the breakup

[Gandahar]

Hope the media do not jump on the commercial aspect.

They're been doing a very good job.

Pot noodles for the ISS astroscientists for the next month ... result. Can't beat a Pot noodle.

[CrutyRammers]

Caruso said:

SpaceX had such an impressive record that it's a great shame for this to happen.

Yes, but then it's best to iron this stuff out before they start putting people in it.

[MartG]

Another theory.....

[MartG]

On a more serious note

[MartG]

Could it have been something as simple as a frozen relief vent in the interstage ? The failure occurred during stage 2 engine chilldown, when Lox is run through the S2 engine to prepare it for ignition. If the oxygen couldn't be vented from the interstage quick enough it could have failed due to overpressure, allowing the 2nd stage to fall back into the 1st stage and rupture.

[Einion Yrth]

MartG said:

On a more serious note

Not good. If you don't know what went wrong you can't hope to mitigate against it doing it again.

[Eric Mc]

I'm sure the details will be extracted from the telemetry.

Here's an interesting Infra Red view of the incident -



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP3eUoQvQyY

[MartG]

I expect they'll also be looking to recover debris from the seafloor, or if too deep then at least having a look at it via ROV

[Einion Yrth]

Eric Mc said:

I'm sure the details will be extracted from the telemetry.

I'm not; "parsing the data with a hex editor" is equivalent to waving a dead chicken over the remains. Fingers crossed, touch wood and all that, but I'm not confident.

[Eric Mc]

They actually had a camera on board looking up at the second stage. On some of the feeds they showed that image.

[Mojocvh]

Some interesting comments and info at the bottom of this article..

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/07/01/data-not-debr...