After one of its Falcon 9 orbital class rockets erupted in a fireball on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida earlier this month, SpaceXOpens in a new tab immediately went into autopsy mode to figure out what went wrong with the vehicle. Now, according to a new “anomaly update”Opens in a new tab by those investigating the rocket failure—considered by SpaceX CEO Elon MuskOpens in a new tab to be the most difficult to understand in the company’s history—it’s been determined that the initial catastrophe occurred because of “a large breach in the cryogenic helium system of the second stage liquid oxygen tank…”
The anomaly update, which comes via GizmodoOpens in a new tab, acknowledges that the private space company has still yet to determine exactly what caused the breach of the cryogenic helium system. SpaceX is still “scouring through approximately 3,000 channels of engineering data along with video, audio and imagery,” although they have determined that there is no connection between this RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly), and the one that occurred during last year’s CRS-7 “mishap,” when another one of its Falcon 9 rockets failed in midair before it could deliver its payload to orbit. Musk has noted several times that the initial catastrophe of this most recent event was not an explosion, but was in fact a very fast fireball. This is a critical distinction because although this latest Falcon 9 failure did contain a payload (a satellite co-leased by Facebook), in the future SpaceX will be ferrying astronauts to the ISSOpens in a new tab and perhaps beyond. Musk pointed out in a tweet that “Dragon,” the capsule that will contain astronauts in the future, “would have been fine.”Still working on the Falcon fireball investigation. Turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 9, 2016Opens in a new tab
@scrappydogOpens in a new tab yes. This seems instant from a human perspective, but it really a fast fire, not an explosion. Dragon would have been fine. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2016Opens in a new tab
Musk nor SpaceX appear to be slowing down their plans for more space travel or space innovation due to the recent incident. SpaceX noted in the anomaly update that it is still working on future missions, including those that will be a part of the Commercial Crew Program with NASA (the missions that will take astronauts into space). Musk will also be delivering his ideas on what a colony on MarsOpens in a new tab could look like plus his ideas for making that happen at the International Astronautical ConferenceOpens in a new tab (IAC) in Mexico on September 26th. So far all we know about that is that the rocket Musk wants to use to take people to Mars will actually be able to travel to other planets as well, and will most likely be named the “Interplanetary Transportation System.” It was introduced by Musk with this clip:
Preview of the @SpaceXOpens in a new tab interplanetary transport system at @IAC2016Opens in a new tabhttps://t.co/Rz4XmeAoRwOpens in a new tab
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 18, 2016Opens in a new tab
What do you think about the recent Falcon 9 failure and the price of progress? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Images: Launch ReportOpens in a new tab
