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First Satellite in Facebook's Plan For Global Internet Access Exploded With Falcon 9 (qz.com) 155

Posted by msmash from the gone-up-in-flames dept.
Mike Murphy, reporting for Quartz: The first step in Facebook's grand vision to connect the entire world to the internet -- or Facebook -- has gone up in flames. Earlier today, a SpaceX rocket carrying a satellite that Facebook planned to use in its internet.org initiative exploded during a pre-launch test at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The rocket was due to send the satellite up into orbit Sept. 3, but during the set-up and testing process, an "anomaly" occurred on the launch pad, according to SpaceX, and the rocket exploded. Facebook had planned to lease some of the bandwidth on the satellite, Amos 6, from its operator, the Israeli company SpaceCom, to beam internet to sub-Saharan Africa. The satellite was intended to fill in until Facebook's more ambitious plans for internet access are ready, including developing and launching massive solar-powered drones that use lasers to beam internet to the ground. This the first time Facebook had planned to use a satellite.Facebook wanted to use the $200 million AMOS-6 satellite to beam free internet to developing parts of the world such as Africa. The satellite was supposed to ride SpaceX's Falcon 9 into orbit. After hearing the news, Mark Zuckerberg said he is "deeply disappointed" to hear that SpaceX's launch failure destroyed his satellite. But this setback won't stop him from his goal to connect every person he can find on the face of the earth to get online. He said, "Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well. We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided."
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First Satellite in Facebook's Plan For Global Internet Access Exploded With Falcon 9 More

First Satellite in Facebook's Plan For Global Internet Access Exploded With Falcon 9

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  • Video of the accident (Score:5, Informative)

    by dtmos ( 447842 ) * on Thursday September 01, 2016 @02:30PM (#52810157)

    USLaunchReport has video of the accident [youtube.com]. The first visible anomaly is at 1:11.

    • Re:Video of the accident (Score:4, Funny)

      by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @02:37PM (#52810231) Homepage Journal
      I only saw an explosion. The good news is that it looks like it happened during refueling. Once we switch to EmDrive technology we won't have to use propellant like that.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )
        Or a really long railgun [stackexchange.com].

      • What about technology powered by this kind of drive?

        http://www.screanews.us/SouthS... [screanews.us]

      • Wait, wait, wait! Elon Musk can build electric cars with big batteries. Why didn't he build an electric rocket? I barely remember seeing black and white movies of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon as a child, and their spaceships seemed to be powered by electric razors, that emitted smoke.

        Come on Mr. Musk, watch some ancient science fiction films, and get your engineers working on it!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ls671 ( 1122017 )

          On the contrary, Elon should build Tesla cars driven by chemical rocket propellant. That would rock the place.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by kalpol ( 714519 )
      Looks like an electrical arc? pretty impressive boom.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ajedgar ( 67399 )

        It does kind of look like an electrical arc. There is definitely a really bright, really regular shaped flash before the next frame where it's already looking like a regular explosion.

    • Ouch, looks like a second stage failure - seems very odd!

      • Ouch, looks like a second stage failure - seems very odd!

        Does it fuel from the top? If you stop at 1:11 and single-frame through ( , and . ) there's is an X of light (lens flare?) that seems to cross right where a hose-like thing enters the second stage of the rocket in the previous frame.

        There was another lens flare around 1:08 which seemed odd, but maybe that was just out-of-focus bugs.

        • Clearly, from following your advice it is quite obvious it was caused by that bird. The bird shot at the rocket and caused the LOX to explode.

          In all seriousness, how did you zoom in enough to see the sparks you are mentioning, I don't see anything in the frame before the conflagration obscures everything. By how fast that bird moves between frames, I am guessing that the video has an extremely low frame rate. That bird looked like it flew 100ft or so in the span of a frame.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by NotAPK ( 4529127 )

      Thanks for the link to the video.

      I've watched it on slow motion now a handful of times. "Something" flies across the frame right at the time of the explosion, almost like an overflying aircraft dropped a bomb or something...what do people think?

      • I think you are right. It was a bomb. I did my own analysis and confirmed it. What do you think?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by NotAPK ( 4529127 )

          Can't decide if it's a bug or a terrorist drone strike...

          My frame by frame analysis is inconclusive.

          What do you think?

          • I'm thinking terrorist drone strike. I did a subframe analysis that was conclusive.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by NotAPK ( 4529127 )

              As alarming as that may be, I checked the pixels but don't think it was shopped.

              • I recorded https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] with VLC. The object is visible for 4 frames before the start of the explosion. At that point the bright X of light occurs. In frame 5 the object is directly over the exploding rocket. Then, it disappears! The explosion progresses for 4 more frames. Then ANOTHER object enters the video from the lower left. This object appears to go behind the fireball. It exits to the upper right and transits for about 15 frames. Weird! Has anyone seen a video from a different a
                • In one frame the second object coincides with one of the legs of a lightning tower. Zooming in shows that the leg is being illuminated by the fireball. And, it appears that the object is BEHIND the leg otherwise the illuminated portion of the leg would be darkened by the occluding object.

                • That is kind of interesting. I spent a couple hours to try to figure out what that object is, I zoomed in quite a bit on it and tried to enhance it as best I could. Here's the result [nocookie.net], what do you think?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        It was a terrorist flying rod [paranormal...opedia.com].

  • A setback but... (Score:3)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @02:33PM (#52810191) Homepage Journal
    I am sure SpaceX will use their high bandwidth sensor data and figure out the problem and fix it. It is just like software: you iterate and fix problems. They are still on track to go to Mars by 2018 I am certain. And then...beyond?

  • Facebook's grand vision (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @02:36PM (#52810215)

    So, there IS a God. And He is just.

  • ... until everyone accepts their mandatory cyber upgrade.

  • But this setback won't stop him from his goal to connect every person he can find on the face of the earth to get online. He said, "Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well. We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided.”

    Translation, “But this setback won't stop him from his goal to connect every person he can find on the face of the earth to Facebook. He said, "Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will collect people as well. We remain committed to our mission of assimilating everyone, and we will keep working until everyone provides their personal data to us for free, so that we can continue to monetize it for our proprietary business growth, since our product is humans.

    Facebook

    • What a cynic! Zuckerburg and Elon are doing this for good reasons I am sure. What is good for them, is good for you!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will collect people as well.

      Pokébook—gotta catch 'em all.

    • I would expect every ad delivery platform to have the same goal, at least in theory.

  • It belonged to Spacecom and since it exploded before launch isn't covered by insurance, so they're out $200 million.

    • Or SpaceX is out a rocket, a bunch of fuel and owes SpaceCom a whole lot of compensation?

    • It's covered by insurance, just not *launch* insurance. You thought they wouldn't have a $200M machine covered by insurance for every step of its trip into space?

      But yeah, Facebook was just going to pay for part of the satellite's capacity, they were definitely not the owner in any way.

  • Failure is a part of success (Score:5, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @03:03PM (#52810471)

    It's amazing to watch the people with zero achievements or inventions saying that SpaceX should just give up. You have to keep improving and keep trying. The Wright brothers airplanes didn't work on the first attempt. You cant have discoveries and advances if you just keep giving up.

    • True. Imagine how amazing it will be once the first company is able to use a rocket to launch a satellite! Truly a new age will be upon us. And then once they have accomplished that, maybe they can go to Mars. Or even better, another star!

      • Imagine how amazing it will be once the first company is able to use a rocket to launch a satellite!

        It was a huge step forward, just like the first country launching one was before. We're currently at the point where even our lower aristocracy can afford a trip to space, and seem to be moving towards Joe Average vacationing there in my lifetime.

        And then once they have accomplished that, maybe they can go to Mars. Or even better, another star!

        Well, yes. That's what we're moving towards. However, it'll prob

    • "Success is moving from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." --David Guy Powers

    • Failure is a part of success

      Sure, but failure is also a part of failure. Failure leading to success is much, much rarer than failure leading to failure.

    • Von Braun said it best, it's not a failure as long as we got data.

      So SpaceX got data, FB got a setback, it's so win-win.

  • Geekdom is torn. On one hand, they dance at the setback for the loathsome empire of Zuckerberg and his Book of Faces. On the flip side, that same event is a horrible setback to the great Musk's efforts to colonize Mars.
    • It isn't much of a setback to going to Mars. Think of it like a software bug: once they identify it, it will be fixed. Problem solved. Mars is within our reach, you just need to believe.

    • Rockets explode. Even the best and most tested design will loose a rocket every now and then. That's what happens when you strap cargo or people to a few million pounds of explosive that you hope will go off in a controlled manner. The key is to iterate and learn from the mistakes.

      As far as Facebook it's not a big deal, everyone buys satellite launch insurance these days. They'll have to build a new bird but it likely won't cost facebook anything other than another launch insurance. It will make the rates f

  • Good job Elon, anything you can do in the cause of obstructing and dismantling Facebook is truly a service to humanity! Absolute genius on your part, killing two birds with one stone like that, performing your worst-case launch scenario testing of booster failure, and nixing Zuckerbergs' sattelite all at the same time!

  • It wasn't an explosion, but rather a Rapid Unplanned High-Temperature Disassembly.

  • test (Score:3)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @04:23PM (#52811019)

    if they're just testing the engines why did it need the payload in place ?

    is testing the engines worth the risk ? what is gained by it that they would not find out on the day of the launch ?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They were loading propellant at the time of the accident. It's something you have to do if your engines don't run on magic sparkle power...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      you do a static fire because on launch day once you hit T+0:00 and you are separated from tower, you are either going to space or you're not. Static fire helps because you can analyse the rocket conditions and system operations to ensure there are no issues prior to actually launching the thing. This gives you time to verify and check data and fix any issues that might arise. Also, you can use the data to know how nominally the systems are operating, so if something happens before you separate from the towe

    • > if they're just testing the engines why did it need the payload in place ?

      They're not just testing the engines. They are testing everything on the rocket, including communications and power to the satellite. It would be embarrassing if they forgot to charge the satellite's battery (it has to use one before the solar arrays open up). Basically this is a dress rehearsal for launch, where they do everything except let go of the rocket from the pad. Assuming everything went well, it would shut down the

    • It did not need the payload in place, and they used to do it without the payload on top.

      With their experience built up and rocket design finally(?) standardized, they judged the risk to the payload was small enough to be worth saving an extra day or so of work to do the test without the payload. This is the first time a payload was or would have been harmed by a static fire on the pad.

      Doing the test without the payload means after the test they have to lower the rocket, bring it back into the building t

    • if they're just testing the engines why did it need the payload in place ?

      My guess is that de-erecting the bird and returning to the hanger to install the payload breaks the very interfaces that are part of the static test in the first place. Which (likely) negates the reason for performing the static test. (Not that I understand or even know SpaceX's reasons - nobody else does them routinely, only SpaceX.)

    • Re:test (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Michael Woodhams ( 112247 ) on Thursday September 01, 2016 @08:05PM (#52812199) Journal

      If you static fired without payload, you'd then have significantly longer between the static test fire and launch (during which something might break) and you'd need to lower the rocket to horizontal to attach the payload and raise it again, again with the potential for breaking something. You'd also have each launch keeping the launch pad occupied for longer.

      So, it is a trade-off, and you'd need an intimate knowledge of the rocket and launch operations to know whether SpaceX's choice to test with payload was correct.

      • This is correct. They *can* do the static fire without the payload attached - and for many early launches, that's what they did - but it takes longer between static fire and launch. With the launch window coming only three days away, and no incident like this having occurred in approximately forever (they didn't even have the engines lit yet!) saving some time and (presumably) risk by having the payload stacked on the rocket probably made sense... to the satellite owner.

        It wasn't even SpaceX's decision; the

        • It wasn't even SpaceX's decision; the payload owner makes the choices like that.

          That is an interesting bit of information which I was unaware of.

  • Rapid Unplanned Disassembly is the term they use.

  • Most advanced AI to date? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    There is enough suffering and disease in Africa already, if the country also became infected with Facebook the situation would be unbearable. The Falcon 9 onboard artificial intelligence therefore decided to self-destruct. I think that is incredibly noble.

  • it was too soon to replace rocket fuel with Tesla batteries.

  • The explosion appears to have started in stage II. You can't test fire stage II, so why would it even have fuel in it?

  • For whoever promotes himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be promoted.

  • Anything of value that was lost?

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