My fun exciting Saturday night

Saturday night was not what I expected. Danielle had already made plans to be with a friend most of the day and I had a final to finish. I was helping our church with the video feed to the internet when I saw a blip on Twitter stating that SpaceX was going to conduct its third test flight in just over an hour and it was going to be broadcast over the internet.

My mind started racing about how to wrap up what I was doing, get dinner for the two of us, and then get settled in for a fun night of watching a private rocket launch (I'm halfway serious about it being fun).

This launch was really important to SpaceX. They're one of the private companies trying to fill the gap between the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 and the Ares rocket (currently scheduled to fly in 2015). They had two previous launches that were not successful (although some people will debate that technically the second one was successful even though the rocket did not make orbit).

So Danielle came home, we talked (I know honey, don't bring up the topic in this comments section please) and we settled in on the couch. The launch time kept getting pushed back. Danielle finally went to bed. They tried one launch after 11:00PM EDT and at T-0 the engines shut down, but after diagnosing the problem they were able to reset the clock to T-10 minutes and actually launch. That feat was impressive. How many times was I ready to watch the shuttle launch when it was scrubbed at the last minute?

The rocket finally takes off after 11:30PM EDT (yes, I was still up!). Everything looks really smooth. Then about 2 minutes into the flight the video was cut off. Check out the video:


Launch Failure of SpaceX Falcon 1 - Flight 3 from SpaceVidcast on Vimeo.

Today, SpaceX released a statement as to what happened (from the Orlando Sentinel):

The problem, explained Musk, occurred in the brief seconds between the cutoff of the first stage engine and the separation of the two stages. The engine of the first stage kept firing, causing it to impact the second side. Both stages were damaged and each fell into the Pacific Ocean below.

“Both stages are sleeping with the fishes,” he said.

“If it had been one extra second, it wouldn’t have happened,” Musk said. The fix, he said, would require changing the cutoff timing of the first stage engine.

Doh! This just goes to show you how we take for granted the complexity of things. SpaceX is going through a lot of growing pains as they're starting a new company from the ground up. We've been launching rockets into space for around half a century, but sometimes experience is the best teacher.

Link to Florida Today report.

I can't wait for the next launch. Maybe it will also happen on a Saturday night ;)