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Transportation Space

Falcon 9 Explodes On Pad (npr.org) 338

Reader Mysticalfruit writes: NPR is reporting that a Falcon9 carrying the AMOS-6 satellite that was supposed to launch on Sat exploded during it's scheduled static fire. No injuries are reported. They're reporting that this was going to be the first reflown first stage.
The Verge adds:SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, meant to launch a satellite this weekend, exploded on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida this morning. The explosion occurred during the preparation for the static fire test of the rocket's engines, NASA told the Associated Press. The blast reportedly shook buildings "several miles away." The company confirmed to The Verge the loss of the Falcon 9 an hour later: "SpaceX can confirm that in preparation for today's static fire, there was an anomaly on the pad resulting in the loss of the vehicle and its payload. Per standard procedure, the pad was clear and there were no injuries."
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Falcon 9 Explodes On Pad

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01, 2016 @09:57AM (#52807837)

    awesome work, spaceX! You rock guys. Please send your next rocket to north korea. Thanks in advance.

  • by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @09:57AM (#52807841)
    As they say, there's always a silver lining...

    https://techcrunch.com/2016/09... [techcrunch.com]
    • by Megane ( 129182 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @09:58AM (#52807853)
      Yes, now they don't have to worry about bad weather this weekend!
    • by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:31AM (#52808047)

      It wasn't Facebooks satellite - they were just leasing a portion of the satellites broadband capability (36 Ka-band spot beams). This was still owned and operated by Spacecom, they and a lot of customers just lost out because of this failure.

      This was the first AMOS satellite to be launched by SpaceX, up until now they had been launched by mainly Russian (AMOS-2 and AMOS-5) or Ukranian (AMOS-3 and AMOS-4) launchers, with AMOS-1 being launched by the Ariane 4 as the only exception.

    • The AMOS-6 satellite belonged to Spacecom, an Israeli telecommunications company. Facebook was to lease a transponder on the satellite, which had many transponders and would have served a lot of other customers.

      It's not yet known what exploded first. It could be AMOS itself, part of the Falcon 9, or something on the pad. It will probably take some time to isolate.

  • Some pics and videos (Score:5, Informative)

    by Okian Warrior ( 537106 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:00AM (#52807861) Homepage Journal

    I couldn't find a video of the actual explosion, but the Mirror has some footage and pics [mirror.co.uk] of the aftermath:

  • by Mysticalfruit ( 533341 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:07AM (#52807907) Homepage Journal
    Sorry I got my sources wrong... This was a brand new booster. I'm sure like everything else SpaceX does there was voluminous amounts of data being recorded and they'll quickly understand the issue.

    It sucks they lost the vehicle and the payload, but more so that the pad is likely heavily damaged.
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Slashdot Editors !

      Your story is wrong !

      CHANGE IT !

      EDIT !

    • Well, glad I decided to read to end of thread before I told you that you were full of it. The "previously used" launcher is going to be putting up SES-10, not AMOS-9.

      In any case, if NPR is saying it's the "previously used" Falcon 9, you can be forgiven for saying that. If you were just confused, than OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!1!!

      Seriously, not sure why anyone thought this was the "previously used" Falcon. It was only announced that they'd found a customer a few days ago, and launches aren't worked up that qui

  • That's nothing... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:14AM (#52807931)

    I read an interesting rocket story in "Computing in the Middle Ages: A View From the Trenches 1955-1983" by Severo Ornstein. The author had to jiggle a tracking antenna connected to a computer during a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral. When the rocket launched, the top and middle stages went in opposite directions while the bottom stage sat unlit on the launch pad. When the self destruct signal got sent out, the bottom stage blew up because the explosives were located only in that stage, and the launch pad got destroyed. The other two stages crash landed downrange.

    https://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages-Trenches-1955-1983/dp/1403315175/ [amazon.com]

  • Is there independent confirmation of this, because I'm not hearing that?

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:17AM (#52807951)

    Privatization - better, cheaper, faster... more bang for the buck.

  • by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @10:39AM (#52808125) Homepage

    Next up another long investigation probably rest of 2016, expect the next new Falcon 9 in early 2017 and the first Falcon Heavy and reused booster probably not before mid-2017. I'm guessing they took another big step back from being man-rated too. I bet Musk is not a happy camper right now.

    • Don't worry about the astronaut rating. That's never going to happen.
      • Astronaut rating, unfortunately, has historically been something like "we will only lose one crew in 90". Rockets blow up (although we don't yet know that this started with the Falcon rather than pad infrastructure or AMOS) and astronauts know that better than anyone else. Early reports are that this started at the top of the rocket, not the part that was firing, and it will take some time to determine what actually happened.

    • by sshir ( 623215 )
      The only rational explanation: Elon burned a lot of karma with that SolarCity merger.
      Now he's having tough times: both (Tesla and SC) companies are in cash crunch, plus this...
  • Isn't this pretty much WHY they do static fires in the first place?

    I'm sure they didn't expect the whole damn thing to explode though. Either way, the data they got from this is incredibly valuable. Whatever happened I'm willing to be won't happen again.

    • Whatever happened I'm willing to be won't happen again.

      ...not with this rocket at least.

    • If you expect it to fail you wouldn't put a payload on it. I'd like to hear more information as to why, which we probably won't get, but it's pretty illogical. Test firing can cause issues when you eventually do launch it for real, so it's not something you'd want to do unless there was a good reason.
      • Most of the SpaceX test fires happen without the payload integrated. And then they take the rocket down and integrate the payload before launch. IMO this was unusual.
  • by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Thursday September 01, 2016 @11:04AM (#52808395) Homepage Journal

    The first stage which is meant to be reflown, F9-023, is waiting for launch later this year. This first stage was brand new, and given the reports that the rocket was still standing with the top bent after the explosion, it doesn't really look like the first stage exploded. The explosion could have been part of the Falcon, the AMOS satellite, or the pad facilities for fueling the rocket. We'll find out which eventually.

    • I'm sure they'll get it back together again and I'm sure SES are feeling super confident - if that even happens now :-). Given the scale of the explosions, and there were apparently several, I'd be extremely surprised if anything is left standing, certainly of the rocket itself, nor does it matter what stage the explosion started in.
  • TIL "anomaly on the pad" is what "major malfunction" was in 1986.

  • Video of explosion (Score:5, Informative)

    by mr.bri ( 886912 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @12:54PM (#52809305)
    Here's a video of the explosion. It's just over 1 minute in.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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