SpaceX rocket engine explodes during test at Texas facility
theverge.com
theverge.com
SpaceX is working on three projects right now. #1- Falcon Heavy, strapping three Falcon 9s together to make a super awesome rocket. #2- The BFR. All over the news lately, going to be a humongous rocket that does New York to Sydney in under an hour, or take humans to the Moon or Mars.
And #3, they are working on what's being called "Block 5", the supposedly final upgrade to the Falcon 9 rocket, including upgraded Merlin engines. These would make the rockets just that much more powerful, increasing payload sizes on both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches.
So, this is probably one of those new Merlin engines. And it exploded. Which is going to delay Block 5. Damn.
Does BFR happen to stand for "big fucking rocket"?
Edit: fixed... was Doom not Quake :P
I always tell people that BFR stands for "Big Rocket." It's more fun to let them fill in the blank.
I wish people would take notice... Too often, I see creative/meaningful/evocative product and company names criticised with this sort of I'm-not-complaining-but-other-will-thinking.
They do acceptance testing of all their engines, even the current iterations. They've launched literally hundreds of these engines, with multiple tests per engine (and, as an aside, a design for Falcon 9 that is able to survive an engine failure).
They test multiple engines per week, and have the capacity for multiple times that, so losing a test cell for a few weeks need have no impact on the schedule for Block 5.
My take is that this will have essentially no impact on SpaceX's schedule.
If you don't occasionally blow an engine up on the stand you are either not testing hard enough or not pushing the limits hard enough.
It may mean they had a simple FOD (foreign object debris) or contamination issue, not a design problem. Powerful oxidizers like liquid oxygen can make contact explosives out of all kinds of organic materials.
That it exploded is oddly a good thing according to friends at JPL. They say that when ever there is a catastrophic failure like this it forces a deep review and root cause analysis which invariably adds additional understanding and depth to the design. Knowing what can cause an engine to blow up, and knowing you have designed around it, is a good thing.
When I saw the headline I worried it was a Raptor, that would have been much more depressing cause it would have set back BFR schedule significantly.
"It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively.
It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes."
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/implication-...
> The SpaceX representative explained to the ULA officials on site that it was trying to run down all possible leads in what was a cordial, not accusatory, encounter, according to the industry sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
I wouldn't exactly call that trying to blame a sniper.
but I worry that there will now be an increase in the amount of FUD being pushed in the news. It already seems like the amount of muck being thrown at ANYTHING elon musk related has increased over the last few months.