Spacex Launch Anomaly (slow motion video)

[AcesandEights]

I thought you space guys would be all over this by now. Pretty cool vid. I guess this is design redundancy in action?


On last night`s Space X (Falcon/Dragon) launch, shortly after 1 minute into the flight, one of the 9 Merlin engines on the 1st stage experienced an anomaly. This anomaly (looks like some sort of an explosion) caused the flight computers to shut down that one engine.

However, the Falcon 9 vehicle was designed to withstand a single engine failure, and in this case, instructed the other 8 engines to burn for about 30 seconds longer. This was what happened, and the Dragon capsule was successfully inserted into the desired orbit.

Check out this slow motion video of the rockets ascent -- and at the 30 second point in the video, notice the explosion and debris, followed by a puff of black smoke.

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[Mike70]

I was watching this live last night over spaceflightnow.com. when that happened my heart skipped like 3 beats but i've seen so many rocket launches i can't even begin to count them. i realized very quickly "that's an engine flameout. we're fine here."

here's the official release from SpaceX via spaceflightnow.com:


SpaceX says Engine No. 1 on the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage experienced some sort of anomaly about 80 seconds into the launch.

Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO and chief designer, said the engine was shut down by the rocket's on-board computers.

"Falcon 9 detected an anomaly on one of the nine engines and shut it down," Musk wrote in an email to Spaceflight Now. "As designed, the flight computer then recomputed a new ascent profile in realtime to reach the target orbit, which is why the burn times were a bit longer."

The first stage burned nearly 30 seconds longer than planned.

Nine Merlin 1C engines power the Falcon 9's first stage, generating nearly a million pounds of thrust. The kerosene-fueled engines are built by SpaceX at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.

Engine No. 1, positioned on one of the corners of the tic-tac-toe pattern of first stage engines, was shut down earlier than planned, according to Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president.

Shotwell said she was not sure of the cause of the problem, but the engine was turned off.

"Like the Saturn 5, which experienced engine loss on two flights, the Falcon 9 is designed to handle an engine flameout and still complete its mission," Musk said. "I believe Falcon 9 is the only rocket flying today that, like a modern airliner, is capable of completing a flight successfully even after losing an engine. There was no effect on Dragon or the space station resupply mission."

these things happen from time to time. congrats to SpaceX.

on another note: SpaceX is literally changing space flight. they have accomplished things that would take massive govt. Bureaucracies many, many more years to do.

when folks start realizing that there is a lot of money to made in space travel then it's "Away we go."

[Neil]

Looking for that video - Thanks! A lot of debris there!

I've HD'd the video above. You can see it a lot more clearly now!