Launch News SpaceX Falcon 9 F3 COTS2+ Updates

[ADSWNJ]

There's an air of negativity here in some of the posts, that I just don't get. Being able to shut it down that close to launch, with mains lit as well, is IMHO quite impressive. I want that "abundance of caution" attitude for ships going to the ISS, so I'm cool with the safe abort.

Looking forward to the next window.

 

[Urwumpe]

Better it can launch again, than see it crash somewhere and kill at least one human. Never heard of successful failures?

 

[jgrillo2002]

SpaceX got $400-500 million from NASA, so from "your" taxes. Total taxes in the United States are around $2.469 trillion. Not involved is that the money to SpaceX is out of several fiscal years. $500 million from $2.469 trillion is 0,02%. That means if you pay $20,000 per year in taxes you spend $4,05 to SpaceX, as above mentioned even this is to high. Statiscally you should lose more money than you spend to SpaceX.:tiphat:

But still its rediculous to see a faulty space program thanks to our current administration due to a Certain individual.

 

[mojoey]

Looks like they've had their glitch for this mission...



No love for the Apollo 13 references? Come on....engine five fails?

 

[Urwumpe]

what a waste of time and money especially to my tax money

Well, how much did you pay for bringing democracy to Afghanistan in the past 10 years? Compared to that, SpaceX is pretty successful, isn't it? :lol:

And which individual? do you think Elon Musk is actually designing the rockets? He just plays the PR monkey for the show. And that pretty good.

And now something more serious: COTS is meant as service in the fullest sense of the word. Maybe you never had to learn the definition, since you never had to manage services. But I do every day (software development as IT service), so let me help you:

A service is a process that gives the customer a gain while the service provider has the full responsibility for costs and quality.

This means: You currently pay taxes for something, that doesn't cost you anything more if it fails to launch at the first attempt or if it does not reach the intended orbit. That means launch service and launch service provider. If SpaceX Dragon does not reach the ISS, SpaceX will have to pay NASA for the lost cargo.

It is completely different to what NASA used to do in the past, where you did keep on paying taxes, even if it failed epically, but something that is pretty common for commercial flights.

Of course, currently NASA also has to subsidize SpaceX and the other companies as central agency managing the COTS2+ process, since building up of such a service industry is part of NASAs job by law currently. But even that happens pretty different to usual NASA programs. In COTS2+ it is money for milestones. You only get the contract money, if you hit the milestones. That is common for commercial satellites and some military programs, but was never done in NASA.

So, why are you complaining about your few dollars that you paid for COTS2+? would you better keep on paying for some political programs like SLS, which are much more expensive, and which put the full accountability for cost overruns and quality failures on the tax payer?


MattBaker: The engines are separated by Kevlar liners. while in theory, a engine failure could be still sympathetic, it is pretty unlikely to happen. especially since the engines have pretty low power densities for a rocket engine, it is no SSME with the power of a few nuclear reactors compressed into a basketball sized pump. Especially, it is no N-1, which had all 30 engines effectively failing when one of many pipes in the first stage burst by hydraulic hammers.

 

[C3PO]

No love for the Apollo 13 references? Come on....engine five fails?

So as long as they don't stir their oxygen tanks, the Dragon should be OK. :rofl:

 

[RGClark]

Wow, five pages of comments in less than 6 hours after the launch abort.
According to the post launch news conference there is a possibility they'll have to replace the number 5 engine. In that case they will have to push the launch back to September for the next launch opportunity.
This gives another reason for splitting this launch into two test flights as originally planned. As it is now you have two difficulties with the launch that have to be focused on, the successful launch itself and the successful docking.
The numerous delays were caused by the uncertainty with the docking which could have been catastrophic if it failed. However if a prior launch could only be devoted to proximity rendezvous' with just satellites you could have the docking capabilities testing in real world scenarios, not just simulations, giving much better confidence in its validity.
In that case also you could focus more on just making sure the launch proceeded successfully. And you would have avoided the numerous launch delays also giving better confidence in the company being able to make on time launches.


Bob Clark

 

[N_Molson]

OK, then next episode of the serie in September

 

[Urwumpe]

OK, then next episode of the serie in September

It would be much better, if they could do such a "routine" maintenance (on a 9 engine launcher) in a few days or weeks, rather than months... but thats just my opinion.

 

[orb]

 

[anemazoso]

On the spaceflightnow.com mission page it says the engine swap would take a few days. Who said September? Gwen Shotwell? It was rather late here in Vegas when they scrubed so I elected to sleep rather than watch the briefing this morning.

 

[orb]

It was rather late here in Vegas when they scrubed so I elected to sleep rather than watch the briefing this morning.

Well, you can watch it now from the post above yours.

 

[RGClark]

I hope this makes Mr Musk think about the Falcon 9 Heavy. 27 engines, if one combustion chamber explodes everything explodes.

I'm not sanguine either about such large numbers of engines on a rocket intended to make space flight routine.
As I mentioned before there is nothing especially innovative about the SpaceX designs. The engines they're using are of no better efficiency than the ones used on the original Atlas from the 60's. The lightweight stages come from techniques known from the 70's. SpaceX has said they don't want to patent their designs because that would give for example the Chinese greater ease in copying them. However, I wonder if the real reason is that they are just using techniques already known for decades.
What is innovative is that they used good business practice in privately developing their vehicles, which led them to have reduced development costs by up to 90%(!) In the aerospace industry, that is innovative. But of course in the business world there is nothing innovative about that either.
So any of the large aerospace companies in the world could duplicate the SpaceX low development costs except they would be better off just using the much better efficiency (russian) engines now existing, resulting in needing fewer engines plus they wouldn't have the development costs of building entirely new engines.


Bob Clark

---------- Post added at 12:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 PM ----------

On the spaceflightnow.com mission page it says the engine swap would take a few days. Who said September? Gwen Shotwell? It was rather late here in Vegas when they scrubed so I elected to sleep rather than watch the briefing this morning.

It's from earlier news reports prior to the launch that because of scheduling problems any significant delay in the launch would require it to be pushed back all the way to September.


Bob Clark

 

[Urwumpe]

What is innovative is that they used good business practice in privately developing their vehicles, which led them to have reduced development costs by up to 90%(!) In the aerospace industry, that is innovative.

At least in terms of manpower, which is directly linked to costs of course. And lack of innovation is of course cheaper than high technological risk. But such approaches works only for a limited time, and as you can see in SpaceX pipeline, they are aware that they need to achieve much more in terms of real technological innovation to stay ahead, since you can't get any patent protection for business processes.

So any of the large aerospace companies in the world could duplicate the SpaceX low development costs...

First of all, what SpaceX does, is nothing special at all. It is pretty unknown maybe to the USA aerospace industry, which had grown fat and lazy on government contracts without any corporate risk. But compared to what the Russians have done from the 1980s already on, SpaceX is full of choirboys in terms of development costs, clever innovations and offensive marketing.

What SpaceX does, is a pretty common business approach in the IT, where Musk and his friends are from. It works great with hype.

except they would be better off just using the much better efficiency (russian) engines now existing, resulting in needing fewer engines plus they wouldn't have the development costs of building entirely new engines.

Would then be the Chinese dilemma. If nobody tries to be innovative in all fields, the market will stagnate and turn quickly into "all about reducing costs or damaging the rivals by white-hot price reductions"

 

[Cras]

I read on Space.com that it was a sensor glitch, and that nothing appears to have actually gone wrong with the number 5 engine. So a Tuesday scrub....uh I mean launch attempt...seem very possible.

 

[RisingFury]

Am I the only optimist left in this thread?

 

[Codz]

Not many people have much excitement for them after the numerous cancelations and now an abort. It's great that the abort system worked, but it's still disappointing after so many tries.

 

[Kyle]

SpaceX Launch Abort - YouTube

:lol: That was my face when it aborted too, being only a few miles away.

 

[MattBaker]

You know, you could scrub and reschedule, then it takes longer but it gets done properly.
Or you could go and have the chance of a great firework, then it's done, but not quite the way you intended it, also you would probably kill Commercial Spaceflight in the US...

 

[dgatsoulis]

I'd call it a successful failure. I didn't like to watch the abort at -0.5 secs (!?), but it sure as hell beats watching an explosion at T+something.
I thought that it would be better to use the time to change the whole engine by the next launch window, but it turns out that it's better to inspect the faulty number 5 engine and decide what to do next.
After all it may be as simple as replacing a faulty "flangella".