Weather stops SpaceX from blowing up more satellites

Sorry, Musketeers, you'll have to wait until at least January 14 to see how many satellites SpaceX can get into space. The company's Falcon 9 was due to return to space today, but the weather turned against Elon Musk. The launch will hoist seven Iridium satellites into orbit. SpaceX had gotten as far as completing a test …

[JeffyPoooh]

Presumably Iridium NEXT

One step closer to making Comms into an essentially solved problem.

[phuzz]

Re: Presumably Iridium NEXT

Give me more bandwidth and I will find a way to saturate it with pictures of cats. Comms will never be an entirely solved problem.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: Presumably Iridium NEXT

10 to 1 the porn merchants get there first.

[JeffyPoooh]

Re: Presumably Iridium NEXT

Phuzz offered "Comms will never be an entirely solved problem."

Agreed. I anticipated this, and I intentionally included the word 'essentially' (as opposed to "entirely", which is an entirely different word).

Not to mention the 'One step closer...' because even Iridium NEXT isn't going to offer sufficient bandwidth (data rate) to even achieve 'essentially'. But it will be one step closer.

My point was intended in the sense of how GPS has essentially solved the problem navigation. But not entirely.

I believe that both our points are essentially correct.

[Tom Paine]

May I, for one, tip my hat in acknowledgment at the piss-taking approach to SpaceX? Sadly, we may only be able to enjoy such gentle amusement for another year or two until they start flying crewed vehicles. After that, the jokes will be schoolyard only, as after Challenger and Columbia.

[dmck]

How many rockets did NASA and their partners blow up ?

How many have SpaceX ?

[Bubba Von Braun]

The flight failures of the three main USA orbital launcher lineages;

Atlas - 650 flights, 98 Failures (Includes Atlas-5 - 68/1 Partial success)

Delta - 756 flights, 68 Failures (Includes Delta-4 - 34/1 Partial success)

Falcon - 41 flights, 3 Failures

Antares - 6 Flights, 1 Failure

Does not include development flights/failures as Atlas/Thor/Delta/Taurus failures are not available, so I excluded the Falcon 1 stats for balance. Partial fail is counted as success in all

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

USAF ICBM and NASA launch vehicle flight test successes and failures (1957-1965)

The early days must have been pretty spectacular!

[Anonymous Coward]

My high school physics teacher was on the team that developed the Polaris SLBM. He had some hilarious as well as terrifying (one both) stories.

[Justin S.]

Flight failures

Where do you get 41 flights for Falcon? And what is the third failure?

Even if you include Falcon 1, I count 34 total launches: two successful and three failed Falcon 1; and twenty-six completely successful, one partially successful, and two failed Falcon 9.

[Bubba Von Braun]

Re: Flight failures

Check your source.. :-)

1 1 Falcon-9 v1.0 04.06.2010 CC SLC-40 Dragon Qualification Unit

2 2 Falcon-9 v1.0 08.12.2010 CC SLC-40 Dragon C1 / SMDC-ONE 1 / QbX 1 / QbX 2 / Mayflower-Caerus / Perseus 000 / Perseus 001 /

Perseus 002 / Perseus 003

3 3 Falcon-9 v1.0 22.05.2012 CC SLC-40 Dragon C2 / Celestis 11

4 1 Grasshopper 22.09.2012 * MG (R&D)

5 4 Falcon-9 v1.0 08.10.2012 p CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-1 / Orbcomm FM101

6 2 Grasshopper 01.11.2012 * MG (R&D)

7 3 Grasshopper 17.12.2012 * MG (R&D)

8 5 Falcon-9 v1.0 01.03.2013 CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-2

9 4 Grasshopper 07.03.2013 * MG (R&D)

10 5 Grasshopper 19.04.2013 * MG (R&D)

11 6 Grasshopper 14.06.2013 * MG (R&D)

12 7 Grasshopper 13.08.2013 * MG (R&D)

13 1 Falcon-9 v1.1(ex) 29.09.2013 Va SLC-4E CASSIOPE 1 / CUSat / DANDE / POPACS 1 / POPACS 2 / POPACS 3

14 8 Grasshopper 07.10.2013 * MG (R&D)

15 2 Falcon-9 v1.1(ex) 03.12.2013 CC SLC-40 SES 8

16 3 Falcon-9 v1.1(ex) 06.01.2014 CC SLC-40 Thaicom 6

17 1 Falcon-9R-Dev-1 17.04.2014 * MG (R&D)

18 1 Falcon-9 v1.1 18.04.2014 n CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-3 / OPALS⇑ / HDEV⇑ / ALL-STAR/THEIA / KickSat 1 / SporeSat 1 / TSAT / PhoneSat 2.5 /

104 Sprites

18 2 Falcon-9R-Dev-1 01.05.2014 * MG (R&D)

19 3 Falcon-9R-Dev-1 17.06.2014 * MG (R&D)

20 2 Falcon-9 v1.1 14.07.2014 n CC SLC-40 Orbcomm FM103 / FM104 / FM106 / FM107 / FM109 / FM111 / Orbcomm-OG2 Mass Simulator

21 4 Falcon-9R-Dev-1 01.08.2014 * MG (R&D)

22 4 Falcon-9 v1.1(ex) 05.08.2014 CC SLC-40 AsiaSat 8

23 5 Falcon-9R-Dev-1 22.08.2014 *F MG (R&D)

24 5 Falcon-9 v1.1(ex) 07.09.2014 CC SLC-40 AsiaSat 6

25 6 Falcon-9 v1.1(ex) 21.09.2014 CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-4 / RapidScat⇑ / SpinSat↑

26 3 Falcon-9 v1.1 10.01.2015 r CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-5 / CATS⇑ / Flock-1d' 1↑ / Flock-1d' 2↑ / AESP-14↑

27 4 Falcon-9 v1.1 11.02.2015 n CC SLC-40 DSCOVR

28 7 Falcon-9 v1.1(ex) 02.03.2015 CC SLC-40 ABS 3A / Eutelsat 115 West B

29 5 Falcon-9 v1.1 14.04.2015 r CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-6 / Flock-1e 1, ..., 14↑ / Arkyd 3-Reflight↑ / Centennial 1↑

30 8 Falcon-9 v1.1(ex) 27.04.2015 CC SLC-40 TürkmenÄlem 52E

31 6 Falcon-9 v1.1 28.06.2015 F CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-7 / IDA 1⇑ / Flock-1f 1, ..., 8↑

32 1 Falcon-9 v1.2 22.12.2015 CC SLC-40 Orbcomm FM105 / FM108 / FM110 / FM112 / FM113 / FM114 / FM115 / FM116 / FM117 / FM118 / FM119

33 7 Falcon-9 v1.1 17.01.2016 r Va SLC-4E Jason 3

34 2 Falcon-9 v1.2 04.03.2016 r CC SLC-40 SES 9

35 3 Falcon-9 v1.2 08.04.2016 CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-8 / BEAM⇑

36 4 Falcon-9 v1.2 06.05.2016 CC SLC-40 JCSat 14

37 5 Falcon-9 v1.2 27.05.2016 CC SLC-40 Thaicom 8

38 6 Falcon-9 v1.2 15.06.2016 r CC SLC-40 Eutelsat 117 West B / ABS 2A

39 7 Falcon-9 v1.2 18.07.2016 CC SLC-40 Dragon CRS-9 / IDA 2⇑

40 8 Falcon-9 v1.2 14.08.2016 CC SLC-40 JCSat 16

-- - Falcon-9 v1.2 (01.09.2016) F% CC SLC-40 AMOS 6

41 is the AMOS 6, though not in flight I counted it as a failure.. (hair splitting if you dont, and the FAA etal agrees :-) and Grasshopper belongs in the Falcon 9 family according to folks that touch the hardware :-)

Falcon 1 record is;

1 1 Falcon-1 (dev) 24.03.2006 F Om FalconSat 2

2 2 Falcon-1 (dev) 21.03.2007 F Om Demosat (LCT2 / AFSS)

3 1 Falcon-1 03.08.2008 F Om Trailblazer / PreSat / Nanosail D / Celestis 07

4 2 Falcon-1 29.09.2008 Om Ratsat

5 3 Falcon-1 14.07.2009 Om RazakSat 1

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

Re: Flight failures

I suppose total loss of payload is a failure regardless of the vehicle's thrust, velocity and altitude when it happened.

[Justin S.]

Re: Flight failures

@ Bubba Von Braun

"Does not include development flights/failures as Atlas/Thor/Delta/Taurus failures are not available, so I excluded the Falcon 1 stats for balance."

And then you include a crap-ton of development flights for Falcon, e.g. anything listed as "Grasshopper" ("...consists of the first stage of Falcon-9 v1.0, fitted with only one Merlin-1D engine and fixed landing legs"), "Falcon-9R-Dev-1" ("...is test vehicle for the Falcon-9 v1.1 and consists of the longer first stage of Falcon-9 v1.1(ex), fitted with three Merlin-1D engine and operational deployable lightweight landing legs"), and/or "(R&D)".

[Bubba Von Braun]

Re: Flight failures

Your right and I went back over the data it certainly contains the Delta/Thor flights, though I cannot confirm the Convair/AF data so on what is publicly available (short of spending weeks at the national archive) that's as good as it will get.

My point without the nit-picking is SpaceX is tracking the industry norm on failure rates, though as previously posted, it is unusual to have a ground handling failure of this type resulting in loss of vehicle.

[Gene Cash]

Not a flight failure

This isn't a flight failure, as they weren't launching or even planning to. A slight but important difference for the pedants out there.

[Bubba Von Braun]

Re: Not a flight failure

Sadly it was a failure whatever column you wish to place it in.. and rare as ground handling issues are usually sorted by this stage.

Probably the nearest I can recall was an early Atlas hot fire test, engine failure resulted in destruction of the Atlas along with major damage to the launch pad..

[Pascal Monett]

Re: "Sadly it was a failure"

Nonsense. The launch was postponed, that does not and never has counted as a failure for anyone.

If you insist on counting weather-postponed launches as failures, then I very much doubt that there were only 68 launch failures for the Delta program because that would have to mean that the rest of the (756 - 68) 688 flights you indicate were all launched on the first programmed launch date without any weather interference whatsoever.

[Bubba Von Braun]

Re: "Sadly it was a failure"

weather-postponed launches don't result in loss of vehicle and payload. If it makes you happy you can subtract it from the SpaceX count. Reality is, based on time/experience they are slightly below the curve, about overall 10-15% of flights will result in failure.

[Floydian Slip]

Well researched sir

It's also worth pointing out that SpaceX, Blue Origin etc are doing all their launch work under the glaring eye of the global media.

Back in the earlier days of rocketeering, the media was less hot and less fuss was made of launch failures unless loss of life was involved

[Bubba Von Braun]

Re: Well researched sir

I agree with you on SpaceX has been in the glare of the media for ages Blue Origin has been the exact reverse, you get more open info from the Russians compared to Beezos

Funny how we demand perfection in all things, seems in days of old we understood things can and do go wrong its part of the learning process.

If an Saturn V had failed we would have redoubled our efforts, today the program would have been cancelled as too risky.

[Anonymous Coward]

It could be that the way this last SpaceX rocket blew up is what's got some people looking askance at that company.

It's one thing to hurl a gauntlet into the Face of God and see it burst asunder across the sky, but when it prematurely goes bang right there on the pad for no obvious reason, well...

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a reason. They found it and fixed it before they could get launch clearance.

That is how rocket engineering works. You learn from your booms.

[Anonymous Coward]

They deserve a humanitarian award

It could be that the way this last SpaceX rocket blew up is what's got some people looking askance at that company.

I prefer to look at what they blew up. A Facebook satellite. Honestly, if you plan to blow anything up, that is about the best choice ever. Apart from a manned mission with only Zuckerberg on board, of course, but 2017 has only just started..

:)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: They deserve a humanitarian award

No, no, a launch with Zuckerberg on board has to be a success and put him on trajectory that brings him into the Sun. He may have left a will to be cloned from remaining parts if something happens...

[a_yank_lurker]

@dmck

There have been many launch failures by everybody that a SpaceX failure is neither unusual nor totally unexpected especially in the early launches. Rockets are not the most reliable devices and it is somewhat surprising there have been more manned flights go up in a bang.

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

I hope the test fire this time was with an empty cargo hold. You know, just in case.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope the test fire this time was with an empty cargo hold. You know, just in case.....

Nah, it's the second best place for a Facebook satellite to be.

(the best place is on the launch pad, right under the primary exhausts).

[imanidiot]

Nope

AFAIK SpaceX doesn't have a procedure for loading after the rocket is on the pad. Thus the payload is already on board when the thing is rolled out to the pad and onboard when the hold down firing is done.

[Brangdon]

Re: Nope

The payload wasn't on the rocket for this static test. This means they have to lower the rocket, take it back inside, install the payload, then take the rocket back to the pad and raise it to vertical again for the actual launch. Doing all that takes time, and arguably invalidates the static test at least partially (which is why they gave the customer the option of skipping it previously), but will be standard procedure for the next few launches.

[RIBrsiq]

To be fair, they usually tend to RUD the rocket on landing...

[Steve Aubrey]

Just saw the launch/landing

Spectacular.

This is a great time to be alive. I'm old enough to remember when space was the future, through the glory (and then gory) days of the shuttle. Glad we're into another phase of the journey.