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I wasn't paying much attention back when SpaceX were developing Falcon 9. My impression is that they blew up a lot of rockets. My question is: did they have to do a mishap investigation and wait for a new FAA launch license after each of those tests?

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7 minutes ago, Kerwood Floyd said:

I wasn't paying much attention back when SpaceX were developing Falcon 9. My impression is that they blew up a lot of rockets. My question is: did they have to do a mishap investigation and wait for a new FAA launch license after each of those tests?

They didn't blow up rockets. The wrecked a bunch in the ocean learning landing.

The 2 blow ups were one of the early CRS- missions, then AMOS-6 on the pad. Both had them not flying for months.

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22 minutes ago, tater said:

They didn't blow up rockets. The wrecked a bunch in the ocean learning landing.

The 2 blow ups were one of the early CRS- missions, then AMOS-6 on the pad. Both had them not flying for months.

Yes the landing tests used first stages who would be disposed of anyway. Starting with controlled decent then soft landing on water trying to hit an set position and finally landing who after they nailed it worked more and more reliable. 

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45 minutes ago, tater said:

They didn't blow up rockets. The wrecked a bunch in the ocean learning landing.

The 2 blow ups were one of the early CRS- missions, then AMOS-6 on the pad. Both had them not flying for months.

CRS-7, I think I remember watching it live on a news channel in some waiting room TV (not medical, I think an autostore or similar?), because my family was running errands that day. The launch failure was a surprise, and I ended up looking it up when we got home.

To @Kerwood Floyd The failure was in late June, and it took them until December to fly again, almost 6 months. 9 months later in September, AMOS-6 blew up on the pad, and it took them 4 months to return to flight, And yes, they did do mishap investigations, this is the one for AMOS-6 https://web.archive.org/web/20200519183949/https://www.spacex.com/news/2016/09/01/anomaly-updates. This was the CRS-7 report from SpaceX as it was ongoing about a month after the failure.  https://web.archive.org/web/20150721152601/https://www.spacex.com/news/2015/07/20/crs-7-investigation-update

Edited by Spaceception
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@Kerwood Floyd They also lost the first three Falcon 1 rockets (but they didn’t “blow up” unless you count the first one crashing) before succeeding on the fourth and final attempt. That story is detailed in the book “Liftoff!” by Eric Berger, which is worth the read IMO

Edited by StrandedonEarth
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Falcon 1 failed a few times though, right? As I understand it, Falcon 1 was basically just one step in the development process for the Falcon 9.

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38 minutes ago, Kerwood Floyd said:

It seems to me there's a lot of flamey-boomy in this video:

I don't see how this doesn't count as "blowing up rockets"

 

 

I mean yes, you can say they were "blowing up rockets" but this was after already, and successfully, stage separating to deploy a payload, nothing about this hurt the overall mission or threatended its success. They had a booster coming back from space that would otherwise crash into the ocean (like everyone else's boosters), and they wanted to reuse said boosters eventually, why not give it the hardware to try and bring it back if you can?

For a long time on webcasts, and even after landing (and reflying) boosters, SpaceX referred to them as experimental landings, because they were. The DC-X, referred to often in these discussions, was a subscale vehicle that did a few high altitude hops, but nothing like what the Falcon 9 boosters went through, this was largely uncharted territory, and there were doubts about how much it financially made sense.

It's just how you're framing it. Is it a bad thing they were blowing up rockets, because landing wasn't working early on? Or is it a good thing because they had to learn how to do it in the first place, and you're looking for more information about it?

Edited by Spaceception
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1 hour ago, Deddly said:

Falcon 1 failed a few times though, right? As I understand it, Falcon 1 was basically just one step in the development process for the Falcon 9.

Everything can be said to be a step in the development process for everything else that comes after, but as I understand it, Falcon 1 was originally expected to be a viable launcher, not just a step on the way to Falcon 9.

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15 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Everything can be said to be a step in the development process for everything else that comes after, but as I understand it, Falcon 1 was originally expected to be a viable launcher, not just a step on the way to Falcon 9.

Yup, they had a planned upgrade for Falcon 1, 1e, that would upgrade both engines, stretch the tanks, and increase payload from ~.45 to ~1 mT. They had 6 expected customers for it, 2 moved to Falcon 9 when they cancelled it.

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I don't think anyone has actually answered my question, though. Did the FAA not considered the failure to land the booster (however unnecessary and experimental that was) to be a mishap that required investigation? In other words (to quote Tom Lehrer pretending to quote Werner von Braun) "Once the rocket's up who cares where it comes down?"

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7 minutes ago, Kerwood Floyd said:

I don't think anyone has actually answered my question, though. Did the FAA not considered the failure to land the booster (however unnecessary and experimental that was) to be a mishap that required investigation? In other words (to quote Tom Lehrer pretending to quote Werner von Braun) "Once the rocket's up who cares where it comes down?"

All other rocket boosters "come down." There is no mishap when they impact the water, there was no mishap when early F9 boosters hit the water. None exploded before hitting the water (that would possibly be a mishap). Commanding FTS and it not working in a timely way at any point? A mishap I assume.

 

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