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  • Re: Kairos boom

    From The Running Man@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed Mar 13 16:05:40 2024
    On 12/03/2024 19:24 Snidely <[email protected]> wrote:
    Kairos' Maiden Flight, Space One's launch from Kii Spaceport,
    (Northern) Japan, only lasted a few seconds. The video stream showed
    the clouds of smoke from the debris fire casting ominous shadows on the
    pad {ominous is my contribution).

    This rocket used 3 solid stages with a liquid-fueled kickstage. Solids
    avoid the difficulty of building an orbital-class turbopump, but space
    is still hard.

    /dps

    --
    "That's a good sort of hectic, innit?"

    " Very much so, and I'd recommend the haggis wontons."
    -njm

    I think it was simply poorly executed. We've had similar failures which were traced to the hydrophilic nature of the solid fuel. This resulted in the fuel becoming brittle and a huge surface area for the fuel to burn resulting in an explosion.

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  • From Otto J. Makela@21:1/5 to Snidely on Thu Mar 14 13:09:07 2024
    Snidely <[email protected]> wrote:

    NSF reports that the flight termination was used.

    Indeed:

    "The rocket terminated the flight after judging that the
    achievement of its mission would be difficult," company
    president Masakazu Toyoda said.
    Space One did not specify what triggered self-destruction
    after the first-stage engine ignited - or when the company would
    launch the next Kairos - only pledging an investigation into the
    explosion.
    The company said that the launch is highly automated,
    requiring only about a dozen ground staff, and that the rocket
    self-destructs when it detects errors in its flight path, speed
    or control system that could cause a crash that endangers people
    on the ground.
    -- https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/japans-space-one-counts-down-inaugural-kairos-rocket-launch-2024-03-12/

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  • From The Running Man@21:1/5 to All on Thu Mar 14 14:51:12 2024
    On 14/03/2024 13:09 [email protected] (Otto J. Makela)
    wrote:
    Snidely <[email protected]> wrote:

    NSF reports that the flight termination was used.

    Indeed:

    "The rocket terminated the flight after judging that the
    achievement of its mission would be difficult," company
    president Masakazu Toyoda said.
    Space One did not specify what triggered self-destruction
    after the first-stage engine ignited - or when the company would
    launch the next Kairos - only pledging an investigation into the
    explosion.
    The company said that the launch is highly automated,
    requiring only about a dozen ground staff, and that the rocket
    self-destructs when it detects errors in its flight path, speed
    or control system that could cause a crash that endangers people
    on the ground.
    -- https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/japans-space-one-counts-down-inaugural-kairos-rocket-launch-2024-03-12/

    How can it know that only 5 seconds after launch? I mean, the avionics can steer the rocket, right?

    Could be a programming error in the FTS.

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  • From Otto J. Makela@21:1/5 to The Running Man on Thu Mar 14 18:38:51 2024
    The Running Man <[email protected]> wrote:

    How can it know that only 5 seconds after launch? I mean,
    the avionics can steer the rocket, right?

    Could be a programming error in the FTS.

    Could be. In a wider-view video I think you could see the rocket
    beginning to veer to the side even within those 5 seconds,
    which might indicate some kind of a systemic error.

    https://youtu.be/Fq0zDjQEIHE
    --
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