An in-flight rocket engine failure during
SpaceX’s March 18th Starlink launch could
pose a threat to the company’s imminent
NASA astronaut launch debut.
NASA representatives will be part of an ongoing
SpaceX investigation into the engine anomaly
as the company prepares for a Crew Dragon
mission carrying two NASA astronauts.
SpaceX and NASA are currently working to prepare
a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft
for the company’s astronaut launch, a flight
known as Demonstration Mission 2 or Demo 2
mission.
Prior to March 18th, the biggest gating items
were believed to be a few final parachute
tests and a whole lot of paperwork and reviews,
as well as some important but less showstopping
astronaut training.
Unfortunately, SpaceX has suffered two unforeseen
issues of varying severity in the last few
days, both of which are now all but guaranteed
to impact Crew Dragon’s astronaut launch
debut schedule.
NASA spokesman Josh Finch said March 24 that
personnel from NASA’s commercial crew program
will be represented in SpaceX’s investigation
of an engine that prematurely shut down during
a March 18 launch.
That participation is intended to comply with
provisions in SpaceX’s Commercial Crew Transportation
Capability, or CCtCap, contract with NASA.
In this video Engineering Today will discuss
SpaceX's in-flight rocket engine failure and
SpaceX's simulated spacecraft becomes unstable
in parachute test, which threatens NASA astronaut
launch debut.
Why NASA want to participate in SpaceX engine
anomaly investigation?
Let’s get into details.
“According to the CCtCap contracts, SpaceX
is required to make available to NASA all
data and resulting reports,” Finch said.
“SpaceX, with NASA’s concurrence, would
need to implement any corrective actions found
during the investigation related to its commercial
crew work prior to its flight test with astronauts
to the International Space Station.”
During the March 18 launch, One of the nine
Merlin engines that powers the reusable Falcon
9's first stage shut down too early, said
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.
He vowed to get to the bottom of the issue,
even though it didn't prevent the rocket from
doing its job.
Less than three minutes after liftoff and
shortly before stage separation was scheduled,
Falcon 9 booster B1048 suffered an engine
failure visible on SpaceX’s official webcast.
By all appearances, Falcon 9’s autonomous
flight computer accounted for the engine’s
failure, shutdown, and the resultant loss
of thrust by burning B1048’s eight remaining
engines for several seconds longer than planned.
While that extra few seconds of burn time
likely ensured that the rocket’s upper stage
was able to make it to the correct orbit after
stage separation, roughly five minutes after
B1048’s extremely rapid engine failure,
contact was lost.
For the first time ever, there were no landing
burn-related call-outs from SpaceX launch
operators, the first sign that something was
seriously wrong.
Elon Musk, said in tweets shortly after the
launch that the malfunction did not affect
the rocket’s ability to place the Starlink
satellites into their planned orbit, as SpaceX
has frequently touted the “engine-out”
redundancy of the vehicle.
However, Musk said that a “thorough investigation”
would be required before the rocket’s next
launch.
This success "shows value of having 9 engines!
March 18th liftoff was the record-breaking
fifth for this Falcon 9 first stage booster,
the first time the company had attempted to
fly a first stage that many times.
But the booster failed to stick its fifth
landing, plunging into the Atlantic Ocean
instead of settling onto the deck of a SpaceX
drone ship as planned.
An anomalous engine reading caused the Falcon
9 to automatically abort a launch attempt
on Monday (March 16), pushing the mission
back to March 18.
It's possible, though far from confirmed,
that the engine issue is related to the one
that caused the abort, Musk said.
“slightly high power” levels from the
engines as they ignited, a glitch that Musk
said was “possibly, but not obviously”
related to the engine anomaly during flight.
It’s likely that B1048’s engine failure
was primarily related to the fact that the
booster was SpaceX’s pathfinder for a fifth-flight
reusability milestone, making it the most
reused rocket booster ever launched.
NASA currently requires all of its Crew Dragon
missions to launch on new Falcon 9 rockets,
hopefully mitigating direct corollaries between
the Starlink lauch anomaly and astronaut launches.
Regardless, the space agency says that the
company will now have to complete its internal
failure review and implement necessary hardware,
software, or rule changes before it’s allowed
to launch NASA astronauts.
The launch was originally planned for July
2019 but was delayed after one of its thrusters
caught fire during a test in April.
The Elon Musk SpaceX has continued to test
the capsule since then, successfully demonstrating
its abort feature in January 2020.
Nasa subsequently confirmed that SpaceX would
be the first commercial company to carry its
astronauts to the ISS, fighting off competition
from Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft which
has been beset by numerous software failures.
SpaceX said March 24 that one of the final
parachute tests for its Crew Dragon spacecraft
went awry, a problem it blamed on the test
setup and not a flaw with the parachutes themselves.
In a statement, SpaceX stated that it tried
to carry out a parachute check by dropping
a test article from a helicopter.
The SpaceX didn’t describe the test article;
however, in some previous exams, it has used
a mockup of a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The test article, though, became unstable
as the helicopter ascended.
“Out of an abundance of caution and to keep
the helicopter crew safe, the pilot pulled
the emergency release,” SpaceX said.
As a result of the helicopter was not but
in place for the test, the parachute system
on the test article was not armed, “and
as such, the parachute system didn’t provoke
the parachute deployment sequence,” SpaceX
stated.
The check article was destroyed.
It added that “no one” was injured and
that Nasa and SpaceX intend to determine the
future testing plan for the capsule.
Whereas SpaceX had suffered issues with parachute
exams previously, including a test failure
in April 2019, SpaceX stated the parachutes
weren’t at fault on this take a look at
since they had been by no means activated.
Earlier than this incident, SpaceX had reported
a string of successes of a brand new Mark
three parachute design meant to enhance their
security.
In December, SpaceX introduced it had performed
10 successful consecutive “multi-chute”
tests of the Mark 3 design, a milestone NASA
and SpaceX had mentioned in October it hoped
to realize by the tip of the year.
Demo-2 will be the second flight to the ISS
for Crew Dragon.
One of the capsules aced an uncrewed test
flight to the orbiting lab, called Demo-1,
in March 2019.
If Demo-2 goes well, SpaceX can start prepping
for contracted crew flights to the ISS, which
the company will fly under a $2.6 billion
deal it signed with NASA in 2014.
Finch said “NASA and SpaceX are holding
the current mid-to-late May launch timeframe
for Demo-2, a schedule NASA announced March
18, but that the agency would adjust the date
based on review of the data, if appropriate.”
The flight, which will employ a SpaceX Falcon
9 rocket, will lift off from NASA's Kennedy
Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
KSC was the jumping-off point for the last
homegrown orbital human spaceflight — STS-135,
whose July 2011 launch kicked off the final
mission of NASA's space shuttle program.
The anomaly was Merlin 1D engine’s first
in-flight failure ever.
The 2012 failure of one of an original Falcon
9 V1.0’s rocket’s nine Merlin 1C engines
is SpaceX’s only other in-flight failure.
SpaceX first cargo Dragon launch for NASA’s
Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program,
CRS-1, in October 2012.
One of nine Merlin engines failed during ascent,
but the Dragon still reached orbit and carried
out its mission.
A secondary payload, an Orbcomm demonstration
satellite, was lost when it was released into
a lower-than-planned orbit.
That launch involved an earlier version of
both the Falcon 9 and the Merlin engine.
March 18th investigation could take a matter
of weeks, possibly even less, but it’s entirely
possible that it could take months – let
alone fixing the problems that allowed the
in-flight Merlin 1D engine failure to happen
in the first place.
Ultimately, it will almost certainly make
even the first flights of Falcon 9 and Heavy
rocket boosters safer, but it could substantially
delay SpaceX’s Demo-2 astronaut launch debut.
Still targeted no earlier than mid-to-late
May 2020, it’s safe to say that it’s reasonable
to expect that schedule to slip over the next
4-6 weeks.
SpaceX’s next launch, of the Argentine radar
satellite SAOCOM 1B, was scheduled for March
30 but has been postponed because of international
travel restrictions for the customer linked
to the coronavirus pandemic.
Stay tuned for updates.
