Falcon 1 Fire Caused by "Procedural Error"

SpaceX official Ewon Shotwell said in a March 31 NPR interview
that the Falcon 1 launch failure was caused by a "procedural error"
that is understood and can be easily corrected. SpaceX won't
release details until the Govt. customer gives the O.K..

"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5315156"

- Ed Kyle

Ed Kyle wrote:
SpaceX official Ewon Shotwell

Make that VP Gwen Shotwell.

said in a March 31 NPR interview
that the Falcon 1 launch failure was caused by a "procedural error"
that is understood and can be easily corrected. SpaceX won't
release details until the Govt. customer gives the O.K..

"http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5315156"

- Ed Kyle

On 1 Apr 2006 21:22:03 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


Ed Kyle wrote:
SpaceX official Ewon Shotwell

Make that VP Gwen Shotwell.

Make it Gwynne Shotwell.

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 1 Apr 2006 21:22:03 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


Ed Kyle wrote:
SpaceX official Ewon Shotwell

Make that VP Gwen Shotwell.

Make it Gwynne Shotwell.

Gwynne it is.

I understand her assertion that the ongoing investigation
prevents releasing failure cause details, but I don't
believe for a second that the Government is preventing
SpaceX from releasing images and/or video of the actual
crash and post-impact fire. SpaceX will quickly develop
a contentious relationship with the media if it continues
to attempt to control information this way.

Any why not release the explosion video? The national
media paid not a whit of attention to the launch attempt.
They would have if SpaceX had released what is probably
a spectacular failure video. Bad press is good publicity
in this era.

- Ed Kyle

On 2 Apr 2006 09:44:45 -0700, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Bad press is good publicity in this era.

There's nothing unique about this era in that regard.

"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
ups.com...
Rand Simberg wrote:
On 1 Apr 2006 21:22:03 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:


Ed Kyle wrote:
SpaceX official Ewon Shotwell

Make that VP Gwen Shotwell.

Make it Gwynne Shotwell.

Gwynne it is.

I understand her assertion that the ongoing investigation
prevents releasing failure cause details, but I don't
believe for a second that the Government is preventing
SpaceX from releasing images and/or video of the actual
crash and post-impact fire. SpaceX will quickly develop
a contentious relationship with the media if it continues
to attempt to control information this way.

Any why not release the explosion video? The national
media paid not a whit of attention to the launch attempt.
They would have if SpaceX had released what is probably
a spectacular failure video. Bad press is good publicity
in this era.



Welcome to the business world. The only thing a large
company really cares about is what it's investors think.
And the only thing an investor really cares about is
what potential investors think.

If the company I'd invested in started advertizing their
problems, I'd sell. In the real business world it's custom
to accentuate the positive, while meeting the legally
required minimum on disclosing the negatives.

It's the American way~ Are you unpatriotic?










- Ed Kyle

On Sun, 2 Apr 2006 13:03:12 -0400, in a place far, far away,
"jonathan" made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

Any why not release the explosion video? The national
media paid not a whit of attention to the launch attempt.
They would have if SpaceX had released what is probably
a spectacular failure video. Bad press is good publicity
in this era.



Welcome to the business world. The only thing a large
company really cares about is what it's investors think.
And the only thing an investor really cares about is
what potential investors think.

In this case, the only (or at least primary) investor is Elon himself.

On 2 Apr 2006 09:44:45 -0700, "Ed Kyle" wrote:

Rand Simberg wrote:
On 1 Apr 2006 21:22:03 -0800, in a place far, far away, "Ed Kyle"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in such a
way as to indicate that:

Ed Kyle wrote:
SpaceX official Ewon Shotwell

Make that VP Gwen Shotwell.

Make it Gwynne Shotwell.

Gwynne it is.

Gwynne Shotwell - Vice President of Business Development.

Seems like an unusual SpaceX employee to start quoting internal short
term investigation finding to the public, but I guess that she has
been doing public relations.

I understand her assertion that the ongoing investigation
prevents releasing failure cause details, but I don't
believe for a second that the Government is preventing
SpaceX from releasing images and/or video of the actual
crash and post-impact fire.

No. SpaceX will certainly censor those themselves. It is one thing to
highlight the truth in that it failed, but it is another to show to
their future customers what SpaceX can do to their precious cargo.

This matter however is about SpaceX and this governmental agency
releasing one or more reports that agree with each other.

SpaceX will quickly develop
a contentious relationship with the media if it continues
to attempt to control information this way.

This is not unusual for any commercial or corporate entity.

Any why not release the explosion video?

Bad advertising.

Kind of like that engine test when they did well to burn down the test
stand.

The national
media paid not a whit of attention to the launch attempt.

I think I read a small column on it.

And I guess in this case I would think that the media would be wrong
to not cover this better, when it is not like that a commercial
company making orbit is not as important, or even more important, to
SpaceShipOne winning the X-Prize.

They would have if SpaceX had released what is probably
a spectacular failure video. Bad press is good publicity
in this era.

It also matters not if the general public have a blow by blow account
of the successes and failures of SpaceX or not, when I am sure that
when SpaceX make orbit then someone will inform the media as to the
nature of this historic event. What does matter is that SpaceX keeps
up a good image to their customer base, where in the end those
customers will be more happy not seeing the worst case situation of
what can happen to their own cargo.

Your desire to see this landing video I expect is all self-centered.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.org
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk

In article . com, Ed
Kyle wrote:

Any why not release the explosion video? The national
media paid not a whit of attention to the launch attempt.
They would have if SpaceX had released what is probably
a spectacular failure video. Bad press is good publicity
in this era.

They now have more complete and higher resolution footage from the
rocketcam on their site. It continues all the way to impact. Since
they intended to recover the first stage in any event, presumably the
rocketcam had a recorder with onboard medium.

http://spacex.com/

Anyway, before launch, it shows a large spray of liquid coming out for
a few seconds before ignition. This is probably the fuel leak that was
described.

--
David M. Palmer (formerly @clark.net, @ematic.com)

On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 22:54:34 -0600, "David M. Palmer"
wrote:

In article . com, Ed
Kyle wrote:

Any why not release the explosion video? The national
media paid not a whit of attention to the launch attempt.
They would have if SpaceX had released what is probably
a spectacular failure video. Bad press is good publicity
in this era.

They now have more complete and higher resolution footage from the
rocketcam on their site. It continues all the way to impact.

Yes, it is a lot more revealing now. On the trip down the window gets
an unexpected water coating when passing back through the clouds, but
you can still make out the ocean below quite clearly.

Since they intended to recover the first stage in any event, presumably
the rocketcam had a recorder with onboard medium.

That is highly possible for back-up purposes. The wireless link could
well be unstable where on-board recording allows for a higher
resolution and uninterrupted copy.

http://spacex.com/

The new complete version only applies to the on-board camera.

Anyway, before launch, it shows a large spray of liquid coming out for
a few seconds before ignition. This is probably the fuel leak that was
described.

I did question if this was a water spray, or even if they had turned
their engine on early without ignition, but it seems clear enough to
me that they sprang a leak.

If you look closely then the liquid spray coming out of the same side
as the camera is the same point that is on fire following launch. So
this is indeed an unplanned leak.

The big question is how they managed to spring this leak when this
should not have happened during testing? Maybe they had a problem with
too much pressure? Or maybe just before launch they opened one value
up while a second remained closed?

That I guess we will soon find out. The biggest question though is why
no one spotted this leak and said "Abort this launch and purge the
fuel"? After all it would have only taken one person keeping a close
watch on this engine to have noticed this leak and to have saved this
satellite launch to another day.

We now await SpaceX's explanation for that gushing liquid. It is good
to see them release the full on-board video though.

Cardman
http://www.cardman.org
http://www.cardman.com
http://www.cardman.co.uk