SpaceX suffered a major setback on Thursday when the company’s Falcon 9 rocket exploded atop its Cape Canaveral SLC-40 launch pad during the countdown to what was expected to be a routine Static Fire Test to clear the rocket for a Saturday morning liftoff with the Israeli AMOS-6 satellite.
Both, Falcon 9 and the $195 million AMOS-6 communications satellite were lost in the mishap and the launch pad appeared to suffer considerable damage in the explosion and the fire that followed it. SpaceX reported the anomaly occurred at 9:07 a.m. local time (13:07 UTC), originating around the second stage’s liquid oxygen tank.
There were no injuries and the majority of damage was contained within the SLC-40 pad perimeter.
U.S. Launch Report, an independent video production company, has been providing video of all recent SpaceX activities at Cape Canaveral and again had their cameras pointed to SLC-40 to record video of the Static Fire Test. Their video of the mishap is likely the only high-quality footage of the event that will ever see the light of day.
Although the video does not reveal an obvious cause of the accident, it offers spectacular insights into the progression of the rocket disaster. Below are still frames from the U.S. Launch Report video showing some of the key events of Thursday’s on-pad explosion, which, more accurately put was a deflagration – an extremely fast burning fire as opposed to a detonation, a distinction dependent on the flame front speed.
The last video frame before the energetic event transpires near the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket
+0.0 Seconds: First video frame showing the origin of the failure on of near the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on the side facing the Strongback Structure. The Strongback still in place to support the rocket indicates the event occurred prior to T-4 minutes when the tanks are only at a preliminary pressure level – not yet fully pressurized for flight.
An interesting observation apparent when scrutinizing the video is the presence of a flame from the very beginning of the event. Typically, when a tank splits open for whatever reason, there is a delay for the fuel and oxidizer to mix and then ignite, provided an ignition source is present (open flame, spark, hot component, electrical or electrostatic arc). The placement of the initial blast as seen in the video would position its origin somewhere near the Stage 2 umbilical attachment, but the angle may be misleading without video from a second perspective.
+0.02 to +0.05 Seconds: Something illuminates the payload fairing. This particular ‘shine’ is only seen for three video frames. The same ‘something’ is intense enough to visibly illuminate the right lightning tower in frames 1 through 4. The same goes for the LOX Sphere on the far right of the frame.
+0.15 Seconds: A white cloud of oxygen expands around the flame front
+0.3 Seconds: The horizontal expansion of the blast progresses faster than in the vertical direction
+0.8 Seconds: The Rocket Propellant 1 tank on the second stage has lost structural integrity and a large quantity of fuel begins spilling down from the vehicle. Pieces of debris are seen being ejected at high speed
+3.0 Seconds: Flaming propellant hits the pad floor, the first stage loses integrity behind the wall of flame.
A brief brightening of the flame occurs between +3.6 and +3.9 seconds
+7.5 Seconds: The Payload fairing with AMOS-6 inside is still sitting atop the Strongback cradles no longer held up by the rocket. The Strongback appears empty with the majority of Falcon’s structure collapsed to the ground.
+9.1 Seconds: The Payload Fairing Tips over and begins a ~57-meter descent to the ground.
+11.5 Seconds: The flaming fairing, now fully inverted, is pictured against the backdrop of flaming launch vehicle remains
+12.4 Seconds: The Fairing hits the ground.
+12.5 Seconds: First Sign of AMOS-6 exploding as hypergolic Hydrazine fuel and Mixed Oxides of Nitrogen oxidizer come into contact after tanks are breached. High-pressure Xenon vessels are likely compromised as well upon ground impact.
+14 Seconds: Satellite and Fairing debris are ejected from the blast, a reddish cloud of satellite propellant is visible, these represent the most toxic substances released in the mishap.
+60 Seconds: Flames and smoke billowing from the launch pad where a large accumulation of RP-1 and rocket debris continues burning for several minutes
RP-1 tanks on the ground (?) fail and add a large quantity of fuel to the fire.
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