Still “no one theory consistent with the data.”
[Update a while later]
Here are more details from Stephen Clark.
4 thoughts on “The Falcon Failure”
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Still “no one theory consistent with the data.”
[Update a while later]
Here are more details from Stephen Clark.
Comments are closed.
“SpaceX officials said the Falcon 9 beamed back more than 3,000 data streams during Sunday’s flight, including on-board video.”
Wow.
In tomorrows news… “SpaceX adds a pressure relief valve to its second stage and goes back to flying.”
A cracked line somewhere might not have any sensors attached directly to identify it. At best they may only determine an area of potential failure like when they replaced corroding nuts with steel ones.
At least they do have data and a timeline of events to start from.
If the source of overpressure was a leak from the helium tank, a relief valve could prevent stage rupture, but perhaps not loss of mission as pressurant gas is lost. If some other fault causes overpressure a relief valve may be all they need.
http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/organizations/space-exploration-technologies/2014-incident-may-provide-clue-to-cause-of-spacex-falcon-9-failure/