I just got a text from FL Today that SpaceX has started the Falcon 9 hot fire test. Here’s hoping all goes well.
[Update a couple minutes later]
I guess that text was way late. Here are some comments over at Clark Lindsey’s place. Sounds like it may not have gone as planned.
Hopefully just a case of being overly cautious.
Well, if there are any bugs left in the system, I hope they fix them before the actual flight. So catching this early is probably positive. Of course, if some major component was trashed during testing, this could end up delaying everything. Hopefully it is something minor.
Wonder if they’ll attempt a fix to the scorched area of cork TPS. It might be possible to cut away the burned area and glue on some replacement material, but this will certainly delay the launch schedule (assuming there aren’t any bigger delays stemming from the issue which caused the abort in the first place.)
The flames and smoke were from the abort purge:
“[upon abort] isolate the engines from the propellant tank and purge the residual propellants. The brief flames seen on the video are burn off of LOX and kerosene on the pad. The engines did not ignite and there was no engine fire.”
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/001/status.html
Keeping the abort parameters tight saves the vehicle. It makes perfect sense. Once they’ve got a few launches under their belt I expect smooth operations. I’d even bet they have no abort on the first launch of the F9-heavy.
I saw this comment on the test:
“i would hate to be the person if they start doing human flights. even nasa does better job at not scrubbing/delaying :P”
To which I replied:
“well they’re not about to start doing them this week are they? seriously, it’s comments like that which make it perfectly reasonable for SpaceX to tell us *nothing* about their test program.”
And I think that’s the simple truth of the matter. SpaceX doesn’t have to provide any media coverage or comment about their tests.. and if being open is just going to encourage premature (if not outright stupid) criticism then why should they?
Unfortunately, opponents of commercial space have the upper hand here.. they can be unfair and no amount of fair reporting will undo the damage.
When they were doing this before for Falcon 1 they were on Kwaj and nobody could peak over their shoulder. I bet these NASA webcams generate at least a little bit of angst for the SpaceX folks working to get this right. I’d hate to be doing that in the glare of publicity if it were me.
on Kwaj and nobody could peak over their shoulder
???
That green flame is awesome. I am guessing that is from the triethylborane. What did they use to call boranes? Green Dragon?
Still if ignition failed, that is something they changed from Falcon 1 Merlin. I think they used to use torch ignition.
on Kwaj and nobody could peak over their shoulder
Ken, I was referring to the NASA webcams that have been showing everything happening at SLC 40 since the vehicle was rolled out to the pad..
SpaceX doesn’t have to provide any media coverage or comment about their tests…
I wouldn’t endorse that view as a matter of principle. Launch vehicles have a rather special status in the law, if for no other reason than national security. It’s not like GM testing an electric car. And there are significant public safety issues that make information release mandatory.
and if being open is just going to encourage premature (if not outright stupid) criticism then why should they?
If they want to become government contractors they have to learn to play by the bureaucracy’s rules. You can whine all you want about it, but that’s just a fact of life. It hasn’t stopped Lockheed from making the best fighter planes in the universe, or Newport News from making the best aircraft carriers.
I’m not saying they have to become government contractors, or even that they should, but if they want to, then they have to learn rule #1: cover the bureaucrats a$$ first, then worry about your own. Sometimes that means full information release about your test failures, and sometimes that means complete silence. It’s Byzantine.
Speaking of which, expect this abort to become a political football shortly. If I were a Florida congressman looking to save Space Coast jobs, I would be scheduling hearings already.
Come on. It’s a test, right? You do these so you can find out what works, doesn’t work, or works, but in unexpected ways. I doubt the guys at SpaceX are going to let some negative web commentary guide their actions.
They switched the Merlin from torch to TEA/TEB ignition back in 2005.
The green flame is clearly the TEA/TEB ignition flame. They say the problem was with spin-up. Its my understanding that the turbo pumps are initially spun up with ground supplied helium before the gas generators are lit. Clearly this process worked in kwaj and at the test stand in tx, so the problem almost has to be ground support equipment at the padon the cape.
Clearly this process worked in kwaj and at the test stand in tx
It worked in Texas eventually, for all we know. They most likely had similar problems over there as well, but ironed them out over time. And we never found out about them, it was part of their test campaign after all.
If this is a matter of overly conservative parameters set and they need to retry a couple of times – as long as they don’t blow up the vehicle in the process, it’s fine by me. What I do find a bit funny is that if some anomalies are found with wet dress countdown rehearsals for any new vehicle necessitating repeated tests, it’s apparently no big deal – it’s a new vehicle and new pad, after all. But an anomaly with a static fire is labeled by some as a failure of the vehicle. Do people actually expect everything working perfectly right out of the box?
Truth be told, it’s SpaceX’ own fault their delays have brought this inaugural launch campaign right into the spotlight. One might even say they couldn’t have possibly picked a worse time (politically) to do it.
I was referring to the NASA webcams
I realized that. It’s just that SpaceX has been one of the most open companies I’ve ever known. Everybody is looking over their shoulders. 😉
Well clearly the abort systems and software work as intended. Silver linings on every cloud and all that.
At the risk of belaboring what ought to be obvious, SpaceX designed the Falcons to be test-fireable on the pad; something no other booster family in the world can do to the best of my knowledge. If a test fizzles, as this one did, they can reset, and try again in a few minutes, hours or days, as post-event investigation dictates. If this was anybody else’s bird, the equivalent event would have looked like Vanguard I.
Chill out, people. It’s no biggy.
Dick Eagleson Says: SpaceX designed the Falcons to be test-fireable on the pad; something no other booster family in the world can do to the best of my knowledge.
Uh Delta IV was also statically fired on the pad prior to its inaugural launch. Japan’s H-II vehicle was fired for *several minutes* last year on the launch pad, there’s a video somewhere on youtube.
What arguably sets Falcon rockets apart is a more *rapid* recycle capability after ignition abort – within minutes. Other vehicles might need at least a day or so of turnaround after an abort post-ignition. And that’s not necessarily related to the engine itself but irreversible events (pyros firing, pre-T-0 umbilicals retracting, etc.) in the vehicle during terminal count.
Fast turnaround and they don’t need an army to launch it. Decisions made years ago.
I stand corrected.
> It worked in Texas eventually, for all we know. They most likely had similar problems over there as well, but ironed them out over time. And we never found out about them, it was part of their test campaign after all.
Latest update on spacex.com reveals this was due to a ground-side value which failed to open – and this value did not exist at the Texas facility.
Yours,
Tom
“Latest update on spacex.com reveals this was due to a ground-side value (sic) which failed to open – and this value did not exist at the Texas facility.”
Larry Williams (SpaceX VP) said they’ve had numerous “Spin Start” aborts in Texas and that it’s not a serious issue. Which just reinforces my point above, isolation *valve* or not.