Re: SpaceX armchair quarterbacking


Damon Hill wrote:
http://kwajrockets.blogspot.com/

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon/f1/060325leak.html

The cause of the failure was apparently a fuel leak, resulting
in a fire and burnthrough of a pressurization line, followed
by an automatic engine cutoff. All other systems and performance
were normal up to that point. The loose insulation apparently
had no effect on the flight.

Hopefully the engine components can be recovered and the
exact point of failure determined, analyzed and fixed. High
pressure plumbing is a common point of failure in any engine
development program; acoustic vibration and/or internal POGO
resonances could have been the cause, for example.

It's just tough that this particular problem apparently didn't
manifest until flight, but rocketry is unforgiving like that.
Spacex has made far more progress than most startups; they're
flying real hardware and learning lessons, the hard way.

I noticed on the video replay that flames appered almost
as soon as the rocket left the pad. One of several possibile
explanations for this would be that a propellant or helium
feedline failed to cleanly disconnect at T-0, hanging up on
the launcher and damaging some plumbing as the rocket
lifted off. I don't know the unbilical layout, so I'm wildly
guessing here, but that would explain why this problem has
not been seen in static tests.

Another possibility would be debris rebounding and hitting
the rocket. A third possibility would be damage from an
acoustic overload. There are other possibilities, including
previously unknown vibration modes, I suppose.

This particular failure looks fixable to me, but it might only
get Falcon up to the next undiscovered failure mode,
probably at Max-Q. The next round might get it to staging,
etc.

- Ed Kyle

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