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Comment by iooi | Hacker News Reader

>The Wall Street Journal and other sources, including our own, had suggested that Zuma failed to separate from the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket following successful first stage separation, at which point it potentially fell back to Earth and was lost in the ocean.

They're really downplaying how bad their coverage was, it really feels like people love to watch Space X fail. For example:

WSJ Headline: "U.S. Spy Satellite Believed Lost After SpaceX Mission Fails"

TC Headline: "SpaceX apparently lost the classified Zuma payload from latest launch"

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Agree - it's the typical sensationalist click-bait nonsense that passes for journalism these days.

Elon Musk gives lots of clicks, ergo SpaceX (or Tesla) are also lot of clicks, ergo try to link the story to SpaceX.

(Wouldn't it be great if there was some movement to track and rate the quality of individual journalists and their output?)

It's not really "sensationalist click-bait nonsense" to link this story to SpaceX, considering it's their launch. Might not be their fault, but linking them to the story is hardly a stretch.

Linking spacex to the failure is the “sensationalist clickbait nonsense”

I'm curious where we draw the line on these kinds of things. SpaceX doesn't manufacture every single component, but if the launch had failed because a faulty screw, I don't think we'd be blaming Precision Attachments Corp., but it seems fair to blame NG here.

Blaming SpaceX for the failure is. Merely linking them to it isn't - from the sound of things, the failure is literally "it couldn't unlink from SpaceX's stage".

However, it was likely the satellite itself that was responsible for separating from the stage.

So, it seems odd to place the blame on SpaceX given that—according to the only public statements we have—it was a failure of the satellite itself, not a failure of the launch vehicle.

You agree that blaming SpaceX is “sensationalist clickbait nonsense”. Would you also agree that a headline "SpaceX apparently lost the classified ..." is blaming SpaceX? https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/08/spacex-apparently-lost-the...?

I dont know enough about the Falcon, but who is responsible for creating the separation process or mechanism from the second stage of the rocket? I assumed it would be SpaceX's?

Generally speaking it is SpaceX. However, due to the very sensitive nature of this payload, the satellite's manufacturer supplied the payload adapter (the bit that handles the detaching) and did the processing themselves (mating the two together, etc).

So, in this specific case, if it was a failure of the payload to deploy properly, that would almost certainly be Northrup Grumman's "fault".

> So, in this specific case, if it was a failure of the payload to deploy properly, that would almost certainly be Northrup Grumman's "fault".

Many scenarios would point that way, yeah. But there are still things the launch vehicle (LV) could have done wrong. At the end of the day, this is a mechanical and electrical interface. Interfaces must be specified and that always leaves room for misinterpretation or incorrect specifications. There had to have been an electrical harness that signaled when it was time to deploy. A failure there could absolutely be on the LV side.

It seems like the secrecy surrounding the payload and payload adapter can't help but increase the odds of failure through restricted information flow between the payload designers and rocket engineers.

On this launch it was Northrup Grumman that built the mechanism that connected to the 2nd stage.

CNN headline: "Zuma spacecraft launched by SpaceX is lost after failing to reach orbit"

I don't like to see SpaceX fail, but I don't like how Elon Musk sometimes appears to try to shift the blame using PR moves...

If it is not SpaceX’s fault in this case, what exactly do you think it is reasonable for them to do?

It’s weird that even your reply seems to assume it’s SpaceX’s fault. Why? (“I don’t like to see SpaceX fail...”)

The parent of my previous comment claimed:

> [...] it really feels like people love to watch Space X fail.

which is why I said that...

What "blame shifting" do you see in this case?

I don't know in this case because it was/is a secret mission and we probably will never know the whole truth ...

I don't understand... If you're accusing someone of "blame shifting", presumably you can identify where you think that is being done.

In this case we have a payload that apparently failed to cleanly separate from the payload adapter (according to a variety of sources). Both the payload and the payload adapter were made by Northrup Grumman, not SpaceX, and the two were mated together by Northrup Grumman, not SpaceX. Do you consider it "blame shifting" to point that out?

https://sattrackcam.blogspot.com.au/2018/01/fuel-dump-of-zum...

mirrors:

http://archive.is/chd3C

https://web.archive.org/save/https://sattrackcam.blogspot.co...

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with that link. Could you add some more context?

The fact that the second stage deorbited when and where it was supposed is just more evidence that the rocket performed as intended.

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