Posted on 03/26/2006 9:23:32 AM PST by KevinDavis
Early insights from investigators examining Friday's failed launch of the first SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket suggest a fuel leak triggered a fire that ultimately brought down the booster, the company's founder said today.
"The good news is that all vehicle systems, including the main engine, thrust vector control, structures, avionics, software, guidance algorithm, etc. were picture perfect. Falcon's trajectory was within 0.2 degrees of nominal during powered flight," Elon Musk said in a statement posted this morning on his brother's blog.
(Excerpt) Read more at spaceflightnow.com ...
Much progress. Elon Musk is resolved to keep going, as the launch went perfectly. The problem appears to have been an isolated incident, although fixing could involve anything from tightening a flange coupling to complete subsystem redesign. Next launch in six months.
When you are launching rockets expect that sh*t happens...
Much went right. Not a bad first launch at all.
I agree. In fact if it wasn't for the fuel leak it would have made the orbit...
It didn't get to the point of second-stage ignition. That is a critical point and where trouble is frequent in new systems. Second-stage ignition would be a significant milestone, perhaps the main milestone between launch and orbital insertion.
If it were my rocket program I would launch the first stage by itself with a dumb load of enough weight to approximate the weight of the second stage and payload. I believe the Apollo program launched the upper stages in the first test launches, saving the huge Saturn 5 first stage for later. The second stage would not be designed to function right or correctly at sea level, so it would wait until the first stage had been tested and found reliable enough.
Not much room for error in rocketry. Hopefully they can get it perfect the next time.
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