posted August 02, 2008 07:48 PM               

Update: Fuel offloading has begun and topping off helium has been aborted...

Update 2: There has been mention on the flight controller loop of refueling the vehicle but no timeline has been given as detanking is still underway. Tonight's launch window remains open until 11:00 p.m. CDT.

Update 3: Per SpaceX, they are working a "minor issue" but are confident they will launch during this launch window. The webcast will resume in about 30 minutes.

posted August 02, 2008 10:04 PM               

There may still be time however, to reset the count at T-10 minutes and launch before the window closes at 11:00 p.m. CDT.

posted August 02, 2008 10:41 PM               

At 10:34 p.m. CDT, Falcon 1 lifted off the pad at the Kwajalein Atoll, about 2500 miles southwest of Hawaii. Two minutes and 13 seconds into flight, the video downlink from the vehicle was lost.

"We are hearing from the launch control center that there has been an anomaly on that vehicle," said SpaceX spokesman Max Vozoff.

Among the Falcon's payloads were two small NASA satellites, including NanoSail-D, which would have been the first test flight of a solar sail.

posted August 03, 2008 12:24 AM               

Plan Going Forward

It was obviously a big disappointment not to reach orbit on this flight [Falcon 1, Flight 3]. On the plus side, the flight of our first stage, with the new Merlin 1C engine that will be used in Falcon 9, was picture perfect. Unfortunately, a problem occurred with stage separation, causing the stages to be held together. This is under investigation and I will send out a note as soon as we understand exactly what happened.

The most important message I'd like to send right now is that SpaceX will not skip a beat in execution going forward. We have flight four of Falcon 1 almost ready for flight and flight five right behind that. I have also given the go ahead to begin fabrication of flight six. Falcon 9 development will also continue unabated, taking into account the lessons learned with Falcon 1. We have made great progress this past week with the successful nine engine firing.

As a precautionary measure to guard against the possibility of flight 3 not reaching orbit, SpaceX recently accepted a significant investment. Combined with our existing cash reserves, that ensures we will have more than sufficient funding on hand to continue launching Falcon 1 and develop Falcon 9 and Dragon. There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in reaching orbit and demonstrating reliable space transport. For my part, I will never give up and I mean never.

Thanks for your hard work and now on to flight four.

posted August 03, 2008 09:37 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by dsenechal:
I wonder if this happened again in last night's launch, and was related to the failure.

---

posted August 04, 2008 08:20 PM            

These are machines, and like our automobiles there will be failures.

But about SpaceX: this is not your government funded rocket booster. This is new rocket design from a new, small company that is primarily funded by an individual, Mr. Elon Musk. His team out of El Segundo, CA, does not have the benefits of a Boeing or a Lockheed Martin. They have only the knowledge of their own testing and launching.. .and from their own failures.

If this failure is a crossed wire or a catastrophic one, they deserve the benefit of time to discover what went wrong, how to fix it, and make sure the designs are proven.

There cannot be an operational program based on a single or two or three launches.

This was learned by NASA on Apollo 6, where after the first almost perfect Saturn 5 flight multiple failures almost doomed the second test. But telemetry told them what went wrong and they were able to man Apollo 8. But on every flight or every test they found problems that had to be fixed.

This lesson was repeated on Operational vehicles named "Columbia" and "Challenger" also.

posted August 04, 2008 08:26 PM               

Wired.com: What happened up there Saturday?

Elon Musk: We're not quite ready to release details on the initial investigation yet, but we should do it very soon. We think we have a very good idea but I don't want to get ahead of ourselves and then be wrong. We definitely know where the problem occurred, but 'why?' is the question. We think we know, but have to be sure. We think it's very small and will require a tiny change, so tiny that if we had another rocket on the pad we could launch tomorrow.

posted August 06, 2008 06:31 PM            

SpaceX Determines Cause of Falcon 1 Launch Failure

It appears that it was a preventable accident due to use of the new Merlin 1C engines and use of old data from the previous launch.

posted August 06, 2008 10:34 PM               

Timing is Everything

On August 2nd, Falcon 1 executed a picture perfect first stage flight, ultimately reaching an altitude of 217 km, but encountered a problem just after stage separation that prevented the second stage from reaching orbit.  At this point, we are certain as to the origin of the problem.  Four methods of analysis – vehicle inertial measurement, chamber pressure, onboard video and a simple physics free body calculation – all give the same answer. 
 
The problem arose due to the longer thrust decay transient of our new Merlin 1C regeneratively cooled engine, as compared to the prior flight that used our old Merlin 1A ablatively cooled engine.  Unlike the ablative engine, the regen engine had unburned fuel in the cooling channels and manifold that combined with a small amount of residual oxygen to produce a small thrust that was just enough to overcome the stage separation pusher impulse. 
 
We were aware of and had allowed for a thrust transient, but did not expect it to last that long.  As it turned out, a very small increase in the time between commanding main engine shutdown and stage separation would have been enough to save the mission.
 
The question then is why didn't we catch this issue?  Unfortunately, the engine chamber pressure is so low for this transient thrust -- only about 10 psi -- that it barely registered on our ground test stand in Texas where ambient pressure is 14.5 psi.  However, in vacuum that 10 psi chamber pressure produced enough thrust to cause the first stage to recontact the second stage. 
 
It looks like we may have flight four on the launch pad as soon as next month.  The long gap between flight two and three was mainly due to the Merlin 1C regen engine development, but there are no technology upgrades between flight three and four. 
 
Good Things About This Flight

• Merlin 1C and overall first stage performance was excellent
  
• The stage separation system worked properly, in that all bolts fired and the pneumatic pushers delivered the correct impulse 
  
• Second stage ignited and achieved nominal chamber pressure
  
• Fairing separated correctly
  
• We discovered this transient problem on Falcon 1 rather than Falcon 9
  
• Rocket stages were integrated, rolled out and launched in seven days
  
• Neither the near miss potential failures of flight two nor any new ones were present

The only untested portion of flight is whether or not we have solved the main problem of flight two, where the control system coupled with the slosh modes of the liquid oxygen tank.  Given the addition of slosh baffles and significant improvements to the control logic, I feel confident that this will not be an issue for the upcoming flight four. 
 
Elon