SpaceX's attempt to land on their barge, ended with a RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly). I hate it when that happens!

https://vine.co/v/OjqeYWWpVWK

I'm sure SpaceX wasn't happy about that either. As a private company, they need to make a profit and reusing components is a good way to improve profits.

They ran out of hydraulic fluid in some control system.

They say they will have more for next try.

I wouldn't say the event was unscheduled per se, destruction of the first stage has been the norm. They gave it only 50% chance of success on first try anyway.

I think it is remarkable they recovered the first stage to ALMOST land it. it is miles up and going supersonic and they guide it back to a location and nearly zero velocity.

Mike C.

They sure weren't quite as loudmouthed about that event as they were about the Orbital mishap last fall.

An experiment that was trying something new, land a first stage to reuse it, almost did that, and everything else about the mission was a success.


Total mission failure in every way. Vehicle and payload destroyed, launch pad damaged.

Mike C.

50 years ago, if a young NASA engineer suggested that we try to recycle the the first stage by landing on a barge, they would have been passed off as nuts.

He's a huge lib, but I really admire that guy anyway (Musk).

It's not the first attempt. The DCX program under McDonnell Douglas had some success before being cancelled.

NASA was trying to figure out how to get to the moon, they were going to take a great big rocket to the moon. Along comes a young North American Aviation engineer who say it's too much weight the best way is to do a lunar orbit rendezvous. NASA your nuts we don't even know if we can do in earth orbit. Guess how they did it. Nothing is crazy

Does anyone know why they'd use an open hydraulic system instead of a closed loop? I'd never heard of such a thing before this accident, and everything about it seems like a bad idea?

To save weight and to be more reliable, no pump required, runs from pressurized nitrogen pushing fluid.

Waste hydraulic fluid is dumped into the engines and burned as fuel. In fact, it is RP-1, a kerosene like fuel similar to jet fuel.

Mike C.

Thanks for the explanation, Mike!

Not sure I'd call that a stabilized approach.
Robin

Agreed. Looked like an airline pilot with an inop autopilot.