First Cheap-Ass Rocket launch ends in failure
The "zipper" didn't work and the low-cost rocket
met a disastrous fate Friday, tumbling out of control and slamming into the
Pacific Ocean moments after liftoff.
Friday’s launch [of the Space-X first flight] turned into a brutal failure.
After…countdown clocks entered the final 75 minutes…the rocket was loaded with a highly-refined kerosene propellant and supercold liquid oxygen to feed the engines on both stages. To keep the liquid oxygen from warming up and naturally boiling away while the rocket sat on its tropical launch pad before liftoff, a “thermal coat” had been wrapped around the first stage. Problems running out of liquid oxygen on the remote island have bedeviled SpaceX over the past few months.
What we did was put a blanket scheme together to cover the first stage LOX tank,” Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX vice president of business development, told reporters during Friday’s countdown.
“It is held to the rocket by Velcro and we’ve got lanyards that hold it down to the ground. So basically the lanyards will pull a zipper as the vehicle lifts up, a Velcro zipper, and that LOX tank insulation will stay on the ground as the vehicle flies through it.”
As the vehicle climbed…a white blanket presumably the cover Shotwell had mentioned could be seen flapping wildly in the onboard video. Large pieces appeared to rip away at T+plus 20 seconds due to the rocket’s increasing speed.
At T+plus 26 seconds [the rocket] rapidly pitched over when its fiery engine plume became greatly distorted.
Just moments later the rocket impacted the ocean, apparently on its side, at about T+plus 41 seconds.
I wonder if Elon Musk’s pockets are deep enough to weather a setback like this?
Posted: Sat - March 25, 2006 at 09:38 AM