On June 28th, 2015, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 on what was to be the 7th resupply mission to the ISS. I was enjoying a nice cup of coffee in my hometown, watching the launch with a few other people at my favorite coffee shop in Fort Collins. That’s when it happened.
The rocket disintegrated in flight.
We all got quiet. Even people who’d never seen a launch could tell something was wrong. Thankfully, no humans were on board, but it was still a distressing experience. Seeing a rocket explode is never something I want to see.
About a month after this initial failure, SpaceX issued a news update on their website. In clinical language, they described their initial findings in great detail.
“On June 28, 2015, following a nominal liftoff, Falcon 9 experienced an over pressure event in the upper stage liquid oxygen tank approximately 139 seconds into flight, resulting in the loss of the mission. This summary represents an initial assessment, but further investigation may reveal more over time.”
“Prior to the mishap, the first stage of the vehicle, including all nine Merlin 1D engines, operated nominally; the first stage actually continued to power through the overpressure event on the second stage for several seconds following the mishap. In addition, the Dragon spacecraft not only survived the second stage event, but also continued to communicate until the vehicle dropped below the horizon and out of range.”
The report goes on to say that the team was analyzing the data in the second up to the event. The SpaceX team spent quote, “thousands of hours going through the painstaking process of matching up data across rocket systems down to the millisecond to understand that final 0.893 seconds prior to loss of telemetry.”
The aftermath of this mishap left SpaceX in a position where they had to pause all launches until the issue with the overpressure event could be solved.
It’s worth noting that SpaceX has lost two Falcon 9 rockets, one during the CRS-7 mission when the rocket was in flight, and another on the launch pad in 2016. A mishap during a pad launch test resulted in a total loss of the Amos 6 satellite and the Falcon 9 rocket. The most recent version of the Falcon 9 rocket, the Block 5, has a 100% success rate for its missions.
Thankfully, the teams at SpaceX solved the problem that caused the failure of CRS-7 and were able to start flying the Falcon 9 again. The NASA “SpaceX CRS-7 Accident Investigation Report” laid out the details of the failure. The report notes that “SpaceX chose to use an industrial grade (as opposed to aerospace grade) 17–4 PH SS (precipitation-hardening stainless steel) cast part (the “rod end”) in a critical load path under cryogenic conditions and strenuous flight environments… This design error is directly related to the Falcon 9 CRS-7 launch failure as a “credible” cause.” You can check out the full PDF here.
In December 2015, SpaceX triumphantly returned to flight with the ORBCOMM-2 mission that delivered 11 satellites into orbit and saw the Falcon 9 come back and land at Landing Zone One, which is pictured below.
SpaceX went from launch failure to make a historic first landing of an orbital class booster in six months.
It’s amazing to look back at how far the team at SpaceX has come since that failure in 2015. SpaceX has launched 123 missions with the Falcon 9 and three missions on Falcon Heavy. More launches happen every week or two, so it always seems like there’s a launch live stream over on spacex.com.
2020 was a momentous year for the company, as they celebrated the launch of two crewed missions. Demo-2 launched with astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken (pictured below) in the Crew Dragon Endeavour in May 2020.
Later that year, the first operational mission, known as SpaceX Crew-1 launched with astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Soichi Noguchi, and Shannon Walker who are pictured below inside the Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft before launch.
Most recently, SpaceX Crew-2 launched in April of this year with astronauts Shane Kimbrough, Megan McArthur, Akihiko Hoshide, and Thomas Pesquet in the Crew Dragon Endeavour, which made its second flight to the International Space Station. The crew of NASA’s Crew-2 mission is pictured below, along with the Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon Endeavour perched atop the rocket.
Crew Dragon Resilience is slated to fly to space for the second time this September on the Inspiration4 mission to low Earth orbit. This flight will be the first time that a crew of private citizens will fly to orbit with Jared Isaacman (the financial backer of the mission) being joined by Hayley Arceneaux, Dr. Sian Proctor, and Christopher Sembroski making up the crew of private commercial astronauts.
The rapid pace of human flights coupled with the reliable reuse of the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 boosters is astonishing.
Looking further ahead, SpaceX teams in Boca Chica, Texas are working on the next big program, Starship, which is currently the only vehicle selected by NASA to take astronauts to the surface of the Moon during the Artemis program.
The next few years are going to be exciting for SpaceX, NASA, and the spaceflight community. Ad astra!