Elon Musk Confirms Reason Behind SpaceX Falcon 9 Explosion, Expects Launches To Resume By December
It’s been over two months now since the fateful SpaceX Falcon 9 explosion, and it looks like the company’s CEO Elon Musk has finally gotten to the bottom of things. He’s also set a tentative timeframe for the resumption of rocket launches – sometime in the middle of December, if everything goes according to plan.
“I think we’ve gotten to the bottom of the problem,” Musk said Friday in an interview with CNBC, as quoted by Space News. “It was a really surprising problem. It’s never been encountered before in the history of rocketry.”
Musk, who referred to the cause of the SpaceX Falcon 9 explosion as the “toughest puzzle” his company has ever had to solve, essentially confirmed previous statements regarding the investigation of the incident, which pinned the blame on fueling issues.
Elon Musk’s earlier statements suggested the rocket failure was related to the loading of liquid helium into the liquid oxygen tank’s carbon composite bottles. This resulted in the creation of solid oxygen, and this may have ignited when it came in contact with the bottles’ carbon composite materials. That wasn’t delved into when the quotable CEO spoke with CNBC, but he did add that this was a first-time incident that has “never happened before in history.”
#ElonMusk says #SpaceX finally knows what caused the latest rocket failure. #space https://t.co/10VsUAIPzi
— DeepSpaceDrones (@DeepSpaceDrones) November 6, 2016
The SpaceX Falcon 9 explosion took place on September 1, during a routine testing process in preparation for the launch of Israeli company Spacecom’s Amos 6 satellite. A previous report from The Verge described the satellite that was to be launched, and what would have been its ultimate purpose – to provide internet access to certain regions in sub-Saharan Africa. Amos 6 was part of Facebook’s broader Internet.org initiative, which was launched in hopes of bringing the internet to parts of the world where access is normally limited to nonexistent.
Now that Musk claims that the “toughest puzzle” has finally been solved, he believes SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets will be ready to launch once again by the middle of December. He was less forthcoming, however, about the purpose and location of the potential mid-December launch.
The New York Times, however, provided some information on what could happen if and when the December launch takes place:
“When SpaceX resumes launching, the first flight will be for one of its commercial customers, but company officials have not said where the next launch will occur. The accident damaged the Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station that SpaceX has used for almost all of its Falcon 9 launches so far.”
The New York Times report also detailed the backstory of the “solid oxygen” issue that supposedly led to the Falcon 9 explosion in September. SpaceX had, in December 2015, started using a new and improved design for its rocket that utilized a much colder form of liquid oxygen. At -340 degrees Fahrenheit, this represents a temperature 40 degrees colder than what’s normally used in rocket launches. The report quoted SpaceX as saying these colder temperatures improve engine thrust through denser oxygen content.
'A hazardous operation': #SpaceX's Falcon 9 fueling plan alarms NASA advisory panel – report https://t.co/2zTTvB4z9D
— RT (@RT_com) November 3, 2016
Had the helium been in liquid form, the Times noted that it would have been much colder at -452 degrees. This may have resulted in some “unintended” cooling that ultimately caused some of the oxygen to crystallize into solid form. According to The Verge, oxygen solidifies if it reaches temperatures of -361 degrees Fahrenheit.
Taking into account all that has happened since SpaceX’s Falcon 9 explosion of more than two months ago, the company wants to make sure the same mistakes do not happen when it commences rocket launching once again. As of the last week of October, as the investigation was reaching the home stretch, SpaceX promised to work on a more reliable helium loading process, one that should hopefully preclude the chances of another catastrophic event.
[Featured Image by NASA/Getty Images]
