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SpaceX is no stranger to delays. The private space firm headed by Elon Musk has pushed back is launch schedule several times in the last few years after rockets have been lost. Now, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) says there may be an issue with the Falcon 9 rocket that delays the expected launch of the first manned mission in 2018.
The report from the GAO (just a preliminary release for now) cites issues with the turboblades used in Falcon 9 rockets. These are the components that move fuel from the tanks to engines. The blades apparently have a tendency to develop cracks, which could cause catastrophic failure if they develop or worsen during a launch.
According to NASA acting administrator Robert Lightfoot (who also has an amazing name) says the agency and SpaceX have been aware of the issue for months (or possibly years). NASA expressed concern to SpaceX that the turboblade cracks presented too great a risk to launch manned missions. Cracks have been found in the turboblades as recently as September 2016.
SpaceX says it has been conducting extensive testing on the Falcon 9 rocket and believes it to be safe. It has made changes to the design of the turboblades in an effort to mitigate the cracking issues. Although, the company may still undertake a full redesign of the blades depending on the upcoming GAO report. If that happens, the manned launch will almost certainly be delayed.
Source:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/243883-problems-falcon-9-design-delay-manned-missions
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 06 2017, @05:17PM
I see your point about problem 2.
I also see your point about problem 1 as a design issue. My point about problem 1 was that no matter what design you use, if someone makes inferior parts that don't meet specs, this is not a design problem. You could try to address poor quality manufacturing (or sabotage) in the design. But I think that is the wrong place to address either of those.
So if you didn't have struts fail due to poor quality or sabotage, then problem 1 isn't really a problem. But I take your point about trying to design so that the strut isn't even an issue.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 06 2017, @07:34PM
But I take your point about trying to design so that the strut isn't even an issue.
You could even take the helium tank/strut problem further. So the problem is if the mounting fails it bowling balls thru the bottom of the ship and blows it up. Well, if you're going to replace one big tank inside the O2 tank with a dangerous strut, why not put like 3 small tanks right on top of the engines and get rid of all that high pressure gas line (which is heavy) and install three one-way valves and if a tank broke off the vehicle not only would it not smash thru the bottom but if it happened late enough in the flight and the one-way valve worked, it might not even affect the flight. Oh maybe booster recovery would literally run out of (pressurized) gas, but that wouldn't kill any astronauts. Inherently safe by design.
The nuke people like inherently safe stuff too. Go ahead, slowly overheat it, the structure expands and it falls out of criticality. Go ahead, cut the wires to the control rods, the rods are attached to the actuators by giant electromagnets so cut the wire and they fall into place shutting down the reactor if you take an axe to the control wires.