Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/12/us-space-spacex-idUSBRE89B18M20121012

by hornokplease • 14 years ago

168 97 14 years ago

ProCynic• 14 years ago

That's what space launch insurance is for I guess.

alanh• 14 years ago

Wow, I hope everyone reads the article before commenting. It’s still amazingly successful. There was a 95% chance the satellite would have made it if they tried, but they were obligated not to try if there were less than a 99% chance of success. (The reduced chance was due to the loss of one of the 9 engines.) And, of course, the primary mission to the space station was fully successful (the engine glitch notwithstanding).

vl2• 14 years ago

It's unclear to me what is the risk to ISS. Secondary payload was on the much lower orbit, and even if it was on the same orbital plane, they could just slightly change orbit plane, and try to raise the obit with any chance of success entirely safe for ISS.

tsotha2• 14 years ago

It's probably mostly a theoretical risk. On the other hand, I recall a flight to Mir that ended up slamming into the station. And NASA doesn't have any reason to accept a risk that doesn't benefit its operations.

rtkwe• 14 years ago

Plane changes are one of the most expensive operations in an orbit iirc.

tomrod• 14 years ago

I agree with your comment. I wanted you to know that I fatfingered the up vote... And gave you a downvote. I apologize.

Here's to many, many more private space successes!

danielweber7• 14 years ago

It wasn't a 95%/99% of the satellite making it; those were the chances that there wouldn't be an incident with the ISS if the upper stage activated.

The Falcon 9 ended up in a slightly different position/velocity than was expected, and the primary mission (deliver to the ISS and don't dare run anything into it) took complete priority over the secondary mission of launching the other satellite into a high orbit.

vl2• 14 years ago

Article says the opposite:

if there was not at least a 99 percent chance that the rocket had enough fuel to complete the burn

ramidarigaz7• 14 years ago

Shame. It doesn't sound like Orbcomm is too disappointed though. They were aware of the risks, and they did get to test some of the systems.

joez• 14 years ago

Actually, sounds like Orbcomm got a heck of a deal. They get insurance money and in addition to getting a few tests off on the prototype.

ramidarigaz7• 14 years ago

Hah. Good point. A couple days of free testing in space isn't a bad deal at all.

martinkallstrom• 14 years ago

It is perfectly clear that this is a story of safety margines adhered to in an admirably strict fashion; not allowing short term thinking rule over long term; and certainly not allowing marketing rule over engineering. This is how you move mountains.

codex2• 14 years ago

It should; all of the material quotes in this article came from a SpaceX public relations agent and not from independent space analysts. Not exactly objective. The only quote from Orbicomm is practically a tautology.

codex2• 14 years ago

In looking at this a bit further, it seems that the reliability of the Falcon 9 is not looking so good. It has only flown four times and suffered single engine shutdowns on two of them (the other: http://www.spacenews.com/civil/spacex-acknowledges-falcon-en...). See also: http://www.americaspace.org/?p=9044.

Simple probability then gives a failure rate of 3%. I have not attempted the Bayesian analysis.

Dylan168072• 14 years ago

On the other hand it doesn't explain why they didn't look at another orbit that they did have enough fuel for. Was this a decision that had to be made immediately?

sp332• 14 years ago

A group of communications satellites have to be deployed in a synchronized way, to continuously cover the area they target. Changing the orbit of this satellite would mean changing the orbits of the other 16 satellites as well. Also I'm pretty sure you have to license a particular orbit ahead of time instead of just picking whatever is convenient at the moment.

InclinedPlane2• 14 years ago

I strongly suspect it was so that they could collect the maximum amount from insurance as quickly as possible. No other explanation makes as much sense.

danielweber7• 14 years ago

They didn't fire at all because there was a risk that they might have hit the ISS. SpaceX was operating under NASA's rules and NASA had a safety window where the Falcon 9 could/couldn't fire its second stage.

The risk was almost certainly overstated, but NASA is understandably paranoid about things hitting the ISS.

RockyMcNuts• 14 years ago

Perfectly clear that PR best practices were adhered to in an admirably strict fashion - show beautiful pictures of apparent success on live video, bury the part where the satellite burns up until after hours on a Friday!

mbenjaminsmith• 14 years ago

Apparently you know nothing about PR "best practices". No consultant worth their salt would have allowed SpaceX to handle the secondary mission failure they way they did. They made a series of classic and potentially disastrous mistakes. The best thing they could have done was address the issue head on with what information they had and then filled in further details as they were known.

To build credibility you have to admit failure. You can't just omit the bad news while focusing on the good news. You can't allow rumor and speculation to be your spokesperson. There's no way around the fact that an engine failure led to the failure of their secondary mission. Test platform or not, fully insured or not, an expensive piece of hardware became a shooting star. Someone didn't get what they paid for.

How it was handled was seriously amateurish. It made me cringe because I really want to see SpaceX (and Musk) succeed. Shit happens, but how you respond to that as an organization defines you for better or worse.

danielweber7• 14 years ago

Everyone in the industry who was paying attention knew that the satellite was having problems on Tuesday. Anyone who wanted to know about it did.

The satellite burned up when it burned up. It was very probable that it was going to have a short life, but no one really knew how short until re-entry was imminent.

tarice4• 14 years ago

So, essentially, a company sends a satellite into space, tests it a lot, and then charges an insurance company $10 million because they expected it to fall into the atmosphere?

What insurance company lets a company take out a plan with that kind of risk?

Seems like NASA should've been getting insurance plans for the shuttle's External Tank all these years.

ramidarigaz7• 14 years ago

They didn't expect it to fall. They were aware that their satellite was a secondary payload and would be abandoned if need be. I don't think anyone expected the Falcon 9 to lose an engine.

tarice4• 14 years ago

From the article:

> "Orbcomm understood from the beginning that the orbit-raising maneuver was tentative," Nelson wrote. "They accepted that there was a high risk of their satellite remaining at the Dragon insertion orbit. SpaceX would not have agreed to fly their satellite otherwise, since this was not part of the core mission and there was a known, material risk of no altitude raise."

High risk, to me, says that there was a pretty good chance it was gonna fall.

sjg007• 14 years ago

The Insurance probably cost $2-5million.

waterlesscloud• 14 years ago

Without knowledge of their premiums, it's difficult to judge what sort of deal it was.

tarice4• 14 years ago

If the mission had succeeded, they would've been able to test it a little longer and then received 0 money back. Early test termination yields $10 mil.

Either way they're still paying the premiums. I have a feeling, though, that the premiums will be going up after this.

whatshisface• 14 years ago

I'm not sure what the estimated failure rate for the falcon 9 rockets were before the most recent launch, but let's assume it was 1 in 27.

So: The insurance company looks at the deal and sees that they have a 1 in 27 chance of having to pay out. Then they ask Orbcomm to pay $10,000,000/27 + profit. Statistically, the insurance company will always win if they make enough deals.

Oh, and I am sure that if NASA offered $1B to anyone who would insure the 50 million tank, there would be an army of takers. ;)

foobarqux• 14 years ago

The problem is the size of the capital base you need to avoid gambler's ruin.

jlgreco• 14 years ago

I think you will find that very few people in this world understand risk better than insurance companies. They were not victimized here.

natep• 14 years ago

To be sure, this is not a good outcome, but improper orbit insertion is a serious risk on every rocket launch, whether or not it's SpaceX and whether or not you're the primary payload. I'm glad to see that all parties involved realized this and Orbcomm planned accordingly. It would make little sense to accept the increased risk that a secondary payload status entails and to not be prepared for the consequences.

And SpaceX behaved just as any other launch vehicle provider would in that situation. They gave their best effort to the secondary payload, but in the end, sacrificed it in order to achieve their primary mission.

NDizzle• 14 years ago

Note to self: Don't start a space mission insurance company.

pjscott• 14 years ago

If you don't have enough capital to take a few hits, don't start any kind of insurance company. If you do have the money, though, it should be the same basic principle as any other insurance company: calculate the risk as best you can, and charge accordingly so that the expected value of your profit is as positive as the market will bear.

United857• 14 years ago

Did the satellite self-destruct or something? The article seems to imply the rocket and payload reached its first goal orbit of 202 miles (to deliver another separate payload to the ISS).

At that altitude, while short of the 466 miles desired, it still should have taken months or years for the orbit to decay and re-enter the atmosphere!

david_shaw• 14 years ago

The primary objective was to reach the ISS, which it did successfully. From there, it was to launch the satellite. From the article:

> To ensure the station's safety, the agreement with NASA prohibited Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX as the privately-held California-based company is known, from restarting the rocket's second stage - needed to deliver Orbcomm's satellite to its proper orbit - if there was not at least a 99 percent chance that the rocket had enough fuel to complete the burn, said SpaceX spokeswoman Katherine Nelson.

Because there was less than a 99% chance of success, SpaceX followed procedures and did not attempt to launch the satellite.

reitzensteinm• 14 years ago

Altitude alone isn't enough for orbit - it also needs sufficient velocity in the right direction, which presumably it didn't have.

A stationary object placed 466 miles above the earth would just fall down.

46Bit• 14 years ago

The launch would be to an orbit that would decay in a short-ish time (perhaps fairly elliptical?), since SpaceX wouldn't want to leave the second stage up there long term as yet another large piece of space debris.

Talking from the knowledge of a hobbyist here though, rather than an expert on such matters, so probably wrong on some counts.

robomartin• 14 years ago

Failure is a part of every human activity worth pursuing. What we do when we fail is what defines us. Looking at the big picture, this mission was nothing but a success. Unless I am wrong, this is the first privately built rocket to deliver cargo to the Space Station. Right? And they achieved this while loosing one engine. High five!

It sounds like everyone involved with the Satellite portion of the mission knew full-well what the risks were and that they had no priority over the main mission. Insurance covered it. Done deal. All is well.

SpaceX can only get better from here. Kudos.

checoivan• 14 years ago

Title should be: SpaceX Falcon9 manages to reach its destination despite the engine failure, delivers a pack of home made ice cream.

keypusher• 14 years ago

Agreed. The text of this article does not match the headline at all.

tocomment• 14 years ago

I never understood why this company couldn't make do with the orbit spacex left it in?

mikeash4• 14 years ago

No, orbit isn't orbit. Among many other considerations, the key problem here was that the initial orbit was low enough for atmospheric drag to be a factor, thus why it fell back to Earth after just a few days.

mturmon4• 14 years ago

And specifically, being underpowered, the orbit was probably highly elliptical.

asalazar• 14 years ago

In the words of the great philosopher, Homer-- "Doh!",

confluence2• 14 years ago

> Among the Dragon's cargo was a freezer that will be used to store scientific samples. For the ride up, SpaceX stashed chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream inside.

Just awesome.

The mission was a success. The satellite maker's loss was covered with insurance money, the ISS stays up in the sky, engine-out capability proven, subsequent launch contracts remain in place from both NASA/the satellite maker - and the ISS astronauts get home-made chocolate ice cream! Win-win-win.

The only entity that got screwed was the insurance company, but that was a risk they were willing to take and were duly paid for doing so.

eridius• 14 years ago

And I bet the insurance company will make the money back over time on subsequent successful launches (among other insured activities).

graupel• 14 years ago

Yes, because guess what? I think the premiums just went up a bit!

danielweber7• 14 years ago

The primary mission was a success. The secondary mission was a failure. $10 million probably covers Orbcomm's launch costs.

SpaceX is awesome, but this isn't an unqualified win. There are groups out for SpaceX's head and they will try (unsuccessfully, I hope) to use this "engine incident" against them. SpaceX did not want this to happen at all.

sylvinus• 14 years ago

They shure didn't want this to happen but they also demonstrated they were able to manage engine failure. That's worth something for the future.

archgoon• 14 years ago

What groups? I haven't heard of any opposition to SpaceX. Heck, NASA contracts with them.

MichaelApproved• 14 years ago

"The only entity that got screwed was the insurance company,"

Unlikely they got screwed over. Insurance money doesn't come out of thin air. Insurance companies charge a premium for coverage and that premium usually goes up after a coverage event to make up for the increased risk. Insurance companies very rarely get screwed over.

samroesch• 14 years ago

I like how they had a little party to celebrate getting ice cream, but I'm wondering, how much did that ice cream cost to bring to space? I think it's about $10,000 to launch a pound of something into space.

At earth parties, $10,000 gets you a lot of drugs/alcohol. At space parties, it gets you a tub of ice cream.

stock_toaster• 14 years ago

  > At earth parties, $10,000 gets you a lot of drugs/alcohol. At space parties, it gets you a tub of ice cream.

Which you get to eat in space.

jamesmcn2• 14 years ago

Assuming that the insurance company actually pays out, this seems like a win for both SpaceX and OrbComm. SpaceX got a paying commercial customer, and had an opportunity to test out yet another part of the Falcon stack. OrbComm got a bit of testing time on their new communication platform at less than the cost of a full launch. If the insurance company is structured properly, this is a loss for them, but will average out over time.

Compare with the age of sail, where a mission was considered successful if one the ships actually returned. Even with 75% of the crew dead and 25% toothless and malnourished from scurvy and other ailments.

jameshart• 14 years ago

Well yes - it's frankly impressive enough that it's possible to get insurance to cover putting your satellite on one of SpaceX's rockets. Speaks well to the future of private space travel that there are institutions willing to take that bet, at a price commercial customers of SpaceX are evidently willing to pay.

pilom• 14 years ago

Last I looked, insurance premiums on spaceflight were on the order of 20-25% of insured value of the payload. So if it were a $10 million payout Orbcomm probably paid out 2 million in insurance pre launch.

lbcadden3• 14 years ago

You can get insurance for anything if you are willing to pay the premium.

beefman• 14 years ago

Unusually clear and detailed article from Reuters. Kudos to Ms. Klotz.

sehugg• 14 years ago

Apparently SpaceX weren't the only ones with engine problems this week. The Delta 4 launch had some anomalies as well. Hard engineering is hard.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/11/satellite-investig...

nkurz2• 14 years ago

Due to the engine shutdown, the Falcon 9 used slightly more fuel and oxygen to reach Dragon's intended 202 mile- (325-km) high orbit.

For the ride up, SpaceX stashed chocolate-vanilla swirl ice cream inside.

the amount of liquid oxygen "was only enough to achieve a roughly 95 percent likelihood of completing the second burn..."

882 pounds (400 kg) of cargo aboard the Dragon capsule

The cynic in my wonders: would they have calculated a 99% likelihood if they hadn't sent the ice cream and had about .1% less cargo?

zachalexander• 14 years ago

Falcon 9: 333,450 kg

Dragon: 4,200 kg

Cargo: 905 kg

Ice cream: <5 kg, I'm guessing

Skipping the ice cream would've reduced their total mass by <0.001% or so, at least at launchtime.

nkurz2• 14 years ago

Appreciate the response, and think you're probably right. I'd be interested in better numbers, though. It's not the mass of the ice cream that't the problem, but the fuel necessary to get that mass to orbit. I think that's about 10x. And it's the percentage of weight at altitude that matters, since that's where the maneuvering was being done, which brings the weight down by about 90%. That's why I was guessing it was a .1% increase, but don't know for sure.

jamesmcn2• 14 years ago

After some further digging, it appears that insurance was at a low back in March. The article discusses the danger of a major failure, such as an Ariane 5 which could be covered at $750 million or a Proton which can carry $400 million worth of cargo. This $10 million loss shouldn't be too big of a deal for the space insurance world.

http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/120302-falling-sa...

cryptoz• 14 years ago

jordanthoms• 14 years ago

Is there an explanation somewhere (preferably with a diagram) of how this launch was supposed to work? I'm not sure where the satellite was attached, and how the upper stage was supposed to boost it - was it going to drop the dragon off at one orbit and then continue higher and release the satellite?

revelation• 14 years ago

Can someone clarify this for me? Why does the contract with NASA forbid them to restart the engine unless they have a 99% chance of completing a second burn?

Is the problem here that if you start a second burn and have to end it prematurely, you could end up in an orbit intersecting the ISS?

saraid2162• 14 years ago

As I understand it, that's exactly what it is.

EGreg• 14 years ago

ice cream!

caycep• 14 years ago

so the ice cream bit at the end makes it all ok?

Satellite burns up following SpaceX rocket glitch

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