Some thoughts from Iain Thomson:
SpaceX doesn’t have those issues; it’s a single company that conceived, designed, built, and flies the Falcon rockets. Finding fault is going to be a lot easier under such circumstances because there’s a single data set and everyone knows everyone else.
The company is packed with highly motivated individuals and has a very flat management structure. Mistakes made are owned up to, and when the issue that caused the loss of the Falcon is identified, you can bet it will be dealt with quickly.
The current SpaceX resupply missions are on hold while this process is worked through. But you’re not going to see the kind of dithering that left the Space Shuttles grounded for 32 long months. If I were a betting man I’d guess the next Falcon will fly in 32 weeks, and maybe sooner.
Very likely sooner, I think. In fact, I think they’ll either figure it out quickly, or not at all. If they can’t figure it out at all, they have a huge dilemma, as I told Leonard David yesterday (he’s working on a piece with quotes from me and others).
[Update a while later]
Some thoughts (and links) from Bob Zimmerman on the media negativity about space.
They really have no option but to continue to fly. I suspect they are also reviewing the current stock of rockets to make sure there isn’t something systemically wrong. A string of failures would be far worse than a one-off. If no cause can be ascertained this time, it might call for some re-instrumentation, but not a flight ban. People outside the aerospace industry have a hard time with this. I suppose because rocket failures are so spectacular. Other types of engineering failures can be as catastrophic but not necessarily in such a visual way. It’s no reason to revoke a bias for action in preference to a bias for analysis.
For some reason, I wasn’t able to read the linked article. I couldn’t even get the base website to work, so perhaps they’re having problems.
Several years ago, I talked to a SpaceX employee at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. IIRC, it was not long after their second Falcon 9 flight. I congratulated them on getting the roll immediately after liftoff problem on the first launch solved so quickly. He said that they knew it was a SpaceX problem that had to be solved. There was no arguing with subcontactors or finger-pointing. They just determined the cause and fixed the problem.
One of the things I respect about SpaceX is their ability to learn quickly when they encounter a problem. Other than the issues with their helium pressurization system, they don’t seem to have the same problem twice.
Finding a reasonable cause for this mishap is, of course, very important. It has only been a few days, but the fact that we haven’t heard anything yet is a bit concerning. Back in the 1980s, the old Soviet space program was launching about 60 times a year. When they had the random launch failure, they’d do a quick analysis. Unless they found a specific problem that needed fixing, they’d just take the next rocket and payload from the assembly lines and launch them (sometimes in as little as two weeks following a failure) figuring the odds of the same mishap happening twice were low enough to accept. SpaceX can’t likely do that because the payloads are so expensive, but if it turns out that no cause can be determined, they may need to take the next rocket on the line and launch it with a dummy payload, probably with extra instrumentation for the second stage. There’s always the possibility that some strange set of circumstances occurred on this launch that was never seen on a previous one. I saw something similar back in 1990 when a very minor code tweak on a radar system’s software caused a bug in the compiler’s FORTRAN library to manifest itself. That library was over 15 years old but it was only when the right set of conditions were present that it was discovered.
I like your software example. There is a tendency to over focus on the rocket. Let’s not forget the ground infrastructure as well (the space hardware equivalent to your software FORTRAN library example). Systemic analysis would cover all these areas. If SpaceX has to fly a dummy payload so be it. It will cost them time and some money, but better that than customers.
Waste anything but customers? 😉
If it was indeed an oxygen tank overpressure then there are only a few things that could fundamentally cause it. If it’s an O2 tank rupture without an overpressure then they had a mechanical defect. I can’t see them taking 32 weeks to fly again, especially when they could give one of their many customers a ‘discount’ and a test launch of a fix.
The comments at that article are just crying out for someone to start a betting pool on the day and hour of next flight.
Does this mean I lose my soda?
IMHO, there is no way to predict how long the grounding will be, because the cause is not known. If it turns out to be something easily fixable (say, hypothetically, a software fix) I’d expect them to be flying again very soon. If it’s something requiting a redesign of the pressurization system, it’ll take a lot longer. And longest of all, IMHO, would be if they can’t figure it out definitively.
If they can’t figure it out definitively, I’d expect to see a very heavily instrumented test launch in the near future (late this year). If they do need to do a test shot before returning to operational flight, I’d be willing to bet they make use of it by lofting a Dragon 2 for the unmanned orbital test.
And speaking of Dragon 2… the in-flight abort is the only thing on their schedule that’s probably unaffected by the grounding. (assuming they are certain the problem wasn’t somehow a first stage issue). And, if it’s the only thing they can fly during a lengthy ground, I’ll bet they do so ASAP for the PR.
Except they just changed their schedule to move it after the first uncrewed orbital test flight.
I have often been proven wrong by events, but rarely so promptly. 🙂
I wonder how soon they could be ready for the uncrewed orbital flight if they tried? It’d make a good RTF mission.
Not being predictable doesn’t prevent a pool.
The left wants to destroy space exploitation and exploration for a very good-resource constraints on Earth will sooner a later create a scarcity economy that they can control by rationing all the goodies. What they don’t seem to understand is that the Earth really is a finite place and that they will eventually run out of things to ration, and then they will die or be reduced to wearing rat fur moccasins along with the rest of the survivors. Plus, if any of the Left have read Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, they may be deathly afraid having to deal with that type of society off Earth. Libertarians with laser weapons, mass drivers, nuclear powered rockets, and other assorted hardware might be very hard to bring to heel across interplanetary distances.
They all see themselves as being in charge. They want scarcity with everybody but themselves the serfs.
I think you vastly overestimate the knowledge/intelligence of these latest totalitarian fascists.
An individual cow in a stampede is not particularly bright, but all the cows in a stampede running in one direction can do a lot of damage before the herd stops and starts milling around again.
Ideological caltrops to break up the stampede?