Rocket Lab vehicle lost during second stage burn on 13th mission

https://twitter.com/RocketLab/status/1279531664759091200

by SergeAx • 6 years ago

91 35 6 years ago

twitter.com

SergeAx5• 6 years ago

Webcast: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZcZoDFYjXc&feature=youtu.be

numpad0• 6 years ago

Is it just me or does S2 appears rolling to the right in camera?

bryanlarsen• 6 years ago

IIRC, this breaks a record that no other rocket has achieved. Prior to this mission, every single Rocket Lab flight with a paying customer has been a success. Many other rockets have had 11 successes in a row, but no other rocket has had their first 11 launches with payloads be a success.

(Rocket Lab's first mission was also a failure, but it did not have a payload. That failure was with ground equipment, so this current failure is their first rocket failure).

Rebelgecko3• 6 years ago

I don't think that's quite right

The Minotaur is currently 11/11 (with a 12th launch planned later this year).

Space Shuttle had 24 consecutive launches before a failure

The standard Delta IV has also had 24 consecutive successes.

ls612• 6 years ago

The Saturn V launched 13 times with no launch failures as well.

vosper2• 6 years ago

I'll preface this by saying I don't know much about space launches...

Space Shuttle had 24 consecutive launches before a failure

The Space Shuttle system was not "a rocket", so possibly GP wasn't counting it?

The standard Delta IV has also had 24 consecutive successes.

Were those consecutive successes from the first launch without a dummy payload?

noway421• 6 years ago

Something happened just before the fuel pump battery hot-swap on the second stage. Here's some visualisation of the acceleration drop-off scraped from the web stream: https://twitter.com/DJSnM/status/1279583677890965504

mar77i• 6 years ago

Great Scott! Love his KSP content, where he discusses space trivia to no end...

SergeAx5• 6 years ago

I am not a rocket scientist, but this looks like the hot swap never happened. Lower power on a pump, then it completely drained battery and just stopped, engine is off, end of story.

It's a bit disappointing right because this hot-swap-and-then-ditch the battery maneuver is their key know-how, it helps to keep 2S engine simpler and cheaper.

rydre2• 6 years ago

If the engines were shut down, the acceleration would be instantly negative. The decay happens faster, no shutdown until it hits zero.

SergeAx5• 6 years ago

For negative acceleration the body needs a force applied in opposite direction. Atmosphere density @ 190 km is nine orders of magnitude less than at sea level, so the drag is negligible.

p1mrx5• 6 years ago

At least we know Rocket Lab's webcast uses real telemetry, unlike Blue Origin, where they break the laws of Physics by pausing at 0 MPH: https://youtu.be/sUEj4dxPMbI?t=2658

danbr• 6 years ago

New Shepard is a suborbital rocket. It reaches apogee (velocity drops to zero), and drops back to land propulsively.

It’s possible it experiences zero-G for more than just a few milliseconds at its apogee. Hence the 0mph velocity.

p1mrx5• 6 years ago

You fell victim to one of the classic blunders: conflating velocity with its derivative.

The (approximately) zero-G period lasts for minutes, not milliseconds, and during that time, the velocity changes by 9.8 m/s (22 MPH) every second. The velocity should not pause at 0, or any other value.

mlindner• 6 years ago

New Shepard is not traveling perfectly vertical, there's always a horizontal component so the velocity will never be zero. Even if you fly up in a perfectly vertical line, you'll gain horizontal velocity as you climb as the Earth's surface moves away from you from it's rotation.

google2341232• 6 years ago

I like how a 1 second pause in telemetry makes you so certain that Blue Origin is fraudulent. Anyway, what is the point of your comment on this thread anyway?

p1mrx5• 6 years ago

I don't think Blue Origin as a whole is fraudulent, just that they're not showing real telemetry data. By way of comparison, I think it's commendable that Rocket Lab's stream was accurate enough for viewers to see the failure occurring live.

SergeAx5• 6 years ago

Yes, I was impressed by Rocket Lab telemetry too. The picture is freezing and I can see by numbers that vehicle gone ballistic...

cameldrv• 6 years ago

Can someone comment on the economics of this? Rocket Lab is charging $5m for 150kg to SSO. SpaceX offers 150kg to SSO on the smallsat rideshare for $1m. What sorts of payloads would not be suitable for rideshare or would be worth 5x the cost for better scheduling or a better orbit?

manquer• 6 years ago

It is never simple cost per kg calculation .

Ridshare orbit depends on the primary orbit requirements, if the orbit is not favourable to your sat, correcting the orbit may not be feasible at all, given the small payload size you may not have the fuel for the correction burn

Also fitting your sat to a rideshare payload adapter could be lot more complex depending on the primary and other shares

Similarly while spaceX is cheap, there are plenty of workloads where ULA is the only option, vertical assembly , certain fairing sized , some orbits etc .

gutino• 6 years ago

- Type of orbit you want, SpaceX rideshare is like a bus trip, it will not get you exactly to your homes door. Rocket lab in this case is like a taxi.

- Timing, perhaps you want to deliver sooner.

swatkat• 6 years ago

There are a few companies such as Spaceflight[1] that partner with launch providers such as ISRO[2][3] to offer rideshare and dedicated launches at much cheaper prices.

[1] https://spaceflight.com/pricing/

[2] https://www.isro.gov.in/launchers

[3] https://www.nsilindia.co.in/launch-services

tigershark• 6 years ago

They are cheaper only for nano satellites. From your first link it costs 295k$ for 10kg to LEO. With spaceX you can send up to 200 kg to LEO for 1M$. It’s 20 times the payload for ~3 times the price.

st_goliath• 6 years ago

Obligatory analysis video by Scott Manley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayYgPdk0VVc

Rocket Lab vehicle lost during second stage burn on 13th mission

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