SpaceX Barge Landing, from on-barge GoPro

Nope, but it was bound to happen eventually. Regardless how routine space launches get, they will never be simple or mundane, so many things to go wrong, many of them explosive. :(
 
This shows that the Government can do something right, in this case they have two cargo suppliers. Orbital gave up on their crazy idea to use fifty year old Commie engines that had a record of exploding in ground tests. They'll now fly on the Atlas 5, which, after today, is the most reliable booster we have.

I'll give SpaceX credit for sharing information quickly, Musk tweeted shortly after the failure

There was an overpressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank. Data suggests counterintuitive cause.
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I guess you don't remember how unsafe aviation was.....in the beginning. :no:

It can become routine....and mundane, once they fly regularly and learn.

Sounds like some TPS failure heating a tank....maybe around the MaxQ event?
Henning said:
Nope, but it was bound to happen eventually. Regardless how routine space launches get, they will never be simple or mundane, so many things to go wrong, many of them explosive. :(
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Checkout_my_Six said:
I guess you don't remember how unsafe aviation was.....in the beginning. :no:

It can become routine....and mundane, once they fly regularly and learn.

Sounds like some TPS failure heating a tank....maybe around the MaxQ event?
Click to expand...

I have not yet seen that aviation, even airline aviation, is free from major fatals.:(
 
While talking to my old roommate, who's a physics professor and rocket junkie, about this, he brought up a good theory.

He thinks a heater in the LOX tank prematurely turned on and heated the oxygen up to its vaporization temp. At that point the tank would rupture from the over pressurization that Musk tweeted about. This is all based on if the tank has a heater, which my friend doesn't know. But this theory is what helped to cause the Apollo 13 event.

There is a very good thread post at another website, that I visit, that is broken down into frame by frame images. That post points towards the over pressurization as being the cause. The upper stage started to break apart as the lower stage powered through it during the same instant. Basically the lower stage crushed the upper.

The images also point toward the capsule being intact but in free fall.
 
Max q is the point in the trajectory where there is a maximum in dynamic pressure [1/2 rho - density * velocity^2]. This point in the trajectory that produces the max bending stresses.....also, thermal protection is needed on the outer skin to protect the materials internal from breaking down, or melting. If the TPS eroded away or failed in some way....that would cause heating, much like when the tiles fell off the shuttle on re-entry.
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
Max q is the point in the trajectory where there is a maximum in dynamic pressure [1/2 rho - density * velocity^2]. This point in the trajectory that produces the max bending stresses.....also, thermal protection is needed on the outer skin to protect the materials internal from breaking down, or melting. If the TPS eroded away or failed in some way....that would cause heating, much like when the tiles fell off the shuttle on re-entry.
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I don't disagree. MaxQ is the most dangerous part of the flight besides liftoff.

This event does show how strong and well built the Falcon 9 is. The frame by frame shows the tank rupturing but the rocket staying intact and on course for a good while. It handled the anomaly quite well even with it being a death sentence.
 
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