SpaceX failure cause latest

This week, SpaceX announced that the recent launch failure was most
likely caused by a failed strut holding the (a?) helium tank down. The
helium tanks are submerged inside the oxygen tanks on Falcon 9, so they
are actually buoyant. It failed at just over 3 g's, so it was actually
three times as buoyant as it was when sitting on the ground. SpaceX
reached the conclusion that a strut failed after testing thousands of
them.

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/0...-releases.html

From above:

There was no evidence of damage prior to launch from close-out
photos. The struts are not made in-house. The supplier was not
named. Musk said that they were able to replicate failure with
1000's of struts and they found a few that did not meet
specifications.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

This week, SpaceX announced that the recent launch failure was most
likely caused by a failed strut holding the (a?) helium tank down. The
helium tanks are submerged inside the oxygen tanks on Falcon 9, so they
are actually buoyant. It failed at just over 3 g's, so it was actually
three times as buoyant as it was when sitting on the ground. SpaceX
reached the conclusion that a strut failed after testing thousands of
them.

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/0...-releases.html

From above:

There was no evidence of damage prior to launch from close-out
photos. The struts are not made in-house. The supplier was not
named. Musk said that they were able to replicate failure with
1000's of struts and they found a few that did not meet
specifications.


I had heard this, though not as much detail.

I've got to say such a failure is actually rather disturbing. I have to
wonder how many "a few" is.

If 3 out of 3000 failed, that's a .3% failure. That's surprisingly high in
my mind.



--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net