Questions tagged [failure]
Questions regarding missions or parts of missions which were not successful.
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What was the most inconsequential failure on an STS mission recorded in mission reports?
Posting a comment over on this question got me thinking as to how insignificant (or not) recorded failures on the Space Shuttle could actually get.
For example browsing the STS-001 Postflight Mission ...
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Why did the May 2016 Falcon 9 launch have a radar glitch?
Looking at a chronicle of booster landing failures, in May 2016 the landing legs appear to have had a radar glitch. This then damaged them. So, my question is why did this happen?
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What was the largest single failure on an STS mission that wasn't critial? [closed]
What was the largest single failure on an STS mission that wasn't critial?Can only be single part failing and can't be something related to it. For example, a sensor not working is okay, but it not ...
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Why did the Firefly Alpha launch in September 2021 fail?
On 2 September 2021, the Firefly Alpha launch had an explosion. The reason does not appear to be available on the web. Even Firefly Space's website does not give any information as to the cause. So, ...
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Why did the June 2016 SpaceX launch run out of propellant?
In other words, what caused SpaceX to miscalculate the amount of propellant required to safely land the booster. They had landed successfully on the drone ship in April. So what went wrong here? What ...
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Which STS mission had the most accidents or failures?
This question was prompted by articles mentioning that a majority of Space Shuttle launches had scrubbed launches.
Which STS mission had the largest amount of accidents and/or failures?
If relevant, ...
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Could Perseverance survive if Ingenuity failed?
They both landed successfully and ingenuity was deployed. Perseverance drove away, and then Ingenuity failed. Could Perseverance survive on its own?
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Why didn't Electron's first stage go "There and Back Again"?
During the "There and Back Again" mission, it seems to have been caught around the 52:45 mark. Then it also seems like the helicopter dropped it. Was this intentional? If so, why? It seems ...
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How can the elements involved in loading a LOX tank be involved in an explosion?
Since SpaceX has isolated the AMOS-6 Falcon 9 pad explosion to the upper stage LOX tank during fueling, it seems useful to consider in general terms what was happening at the time and what materials ...
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How close was the ISS to running out of supplies after the failure of CRS-7?
2014-2015 probably was a scary time to be aboard the ISS, though not for the usual reasons. They were worried about supplies running low, at least somewhat. There was quite the string of bad luck.
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Why did only 31 engines ignite during Starship's static fire?
What could be the reasons behind only 31 engines of the planned 33 engines igniting during Starship's recent static fire, given that the spacecraft is designed to have 33 engines and how could this ...
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Could Ingenuity survive if Perseverance failed?
For the purposes of this question, we will assume that they both landed successfully. Ingenuity was deployed properly. Then, Perseverance drove away, and then Perserverance say hit a large rock and ...
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What caused the falcon booster landing failure during the CRS-16 mission?
On December 5, 2018 the Falcon 9 booster started spinning during the landing burn, and promptly appears to have soft landed on the ocean. While SpaceX stated that the booster could be reused it never ...
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Why did the Virgin One launch fail?
What caused the early shutdown of Virgin rocket's upper stage? The previous failure was also due to early shutdown of engine, although that was first stage failure. As per reports available in public, ...
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Why did the maiden flight of H3 fail?
Recently, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) finally launched the ALOS-3 (Advanced Land Observing Satellite-3) after more than 2 years of delay. On then all seemed to be going well on the first ...
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What happens if the range control fails?
Your rocket was launching. Something went wrong. It is outside of the safety corridor. The range control attempts to terminate the flight, but the Flight Termination System (FTS) fails. Now what ...
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SpaceX Super Heavy booster: Is it publicly known whether the failure of one engine to start prior to liftoff will result in a pad abort?
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, tweeted minutes later that engineers turned off one of the booster’s 33 engines just before ignition, and another engine “stopped itself.”
“So 31 engines fired ...
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Moon landing with ion thrusters
In Kerbal space program I built a mini cubesat (similar to NASA’s lunar flashlight probe) and managed to land on the moon only using ion thrusters. However, it was risky because it took a few tries. ...
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What were the most impactful non-fatal failures on STS missions?
Which failures on STS missions were the most impactful?
Please exclude the o-ring issue on STS-51-L, as well as the tile damage caused by insulative ET foam on STS-107.
Unrelated failures that ...
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What was the Lockheed design solution for the shuttle SRB field joint and how was it superior to the failure prone Morton Thiokol field joint?
In an effort to quickly post this question I've elected to (for the moment) not provide links to my searches.
I've found tons of references, studies, reports, images etc to the failed Thiokol field ...
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If Artemis 1 fails, will it be the end of the program?
The Artemis 1 flight was meant to happen years ago. The program is really expensive and the SLS is not reusable. Other companies like SpaceX or Blue Origin are doing things in a much cheaper and ...
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Which regulatory agency (if any) is in charge of investigating civilian rocket anomalies?
Yesterday Blue Origin's New Shephard had an anomaly during launch. Happens around 1:22:58 in this video
The accident happened around 29,000ft and the capsule fired its ...
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Looking for a document that describes SSME test failures
At some point in the last 5 years I put together this matrix of Space Shuttle Main Engine test failures. The last 6 columns are documents which describe some of the incidents in more or less detail. ...
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After nine years on Mars, has anything on Curiosity broken yet?
As per Wikipedia's Curiosity (rover), it landed nine years ago today at 6 August 2012, 05:17:57 UTC.
This is yet another testament to NASA spacecraft reliability.
Since landing, has anything actually ...
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What would NASA have done if they knew Columbia was catastrophically damaged?
When the Columbia Shuttle broke apart in 2003, it was known after the launch that a piece of foam had fallen and hit the Shuttle. NASA apparently chose not to investigate it as well as they could have....
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Why did the Hyperbola-1 launch fail in February 2021?
There is no launch video and very little data published about the launch. Considering how the maiden flight was successful, and it does appear that they made any design changes, what went wrong? Why ...
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Why did the "Running out of Toes" mission fail?
On May 15, 2021, Rocket Lab's Electron failed in the "Running Out of Toes" mission. The first stage had a nominal flight. Then, from looking at the launch video published by Rocket Lab, the ...
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How would a repair of the JWST proceed if it were ordered regardless of the cost and technical hurdles, depending on when/how it fails? [closed]
I have heard people speaking about how, unlike Hubble, the James Webb Space Telescope is "one of a kind", "not designed to be repaired", "not serviceable", and the like, ...
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What are the causes of Reaction Wheel Failures/Anomalies? [duplicate]
What are the mechanisms of reaction wheel anomalies? Are there any fish bone or fault tree analyses on these issues?
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Why did the recent Elana41 mission fail?
On February 10, 2022, the Astra LV0008 rocket failed mid-flight, shortly after stage separation. It appeared to ignite and then shut off repeatedly, while also spinning out of control. Do we know what ...
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For a launch, how is safe viewing distance determined?
In determining safe viewing distance, seems to me there are discrete threats to consider:
First is the rocket blowing up on the pad, or just above it. That would have no warning. There would be a ...
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What happens if Ariane V actually fails while launching JWST?
Obviously, I don't expect this. But I was thinking about it, and the importance, uniqueness, and irreplaceability of this payload is almost (?) unprecedented, especially for a transnational project. I ...
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Maximum speed based on atmospheric altitude given maximum temp?
I saw the question Could escape velocity be achieved in the atmosphere? and thought it probably could've been asked better.
I'm sure there's an equation to calculate the average heat generated by an ...
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What if both SRBs failed in a shuttle launch?
I'm certain there are several flight regimes where this could happen, and that the procedures should be different for each one. For instance, this is a very different question before lift off than it ...
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How did pages of Ramon's diary survive the Columbia disaster?
In early 2003, the space shuttle Columbia burnt up due to a failed leading edge on the wing from an external tank foam strike. All seven astronauts were killed. Yet, some pages of Ilan Ramon's diary, ...
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What systems onboard the JWST are redundant and which are not?
Examining the capabilities of the JWST I figured that a lot of systems, e.g. the rotation wheels are redundant in order to avoid/reduce risks of failure.
Right now as I write this the Gimbaled Antenna ...
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Why did Columbia disintegrate lower into the atmosphere, not during its peak heat phase?
Space Shuttle Columbia entered a period of peak heating at 46 mi (74 km) altitude. Before the contact got broken, the temperature on Columbia's wing leading-edges had sunk already (and the heat shield ...
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Oxygen Generation System
Is there any possible failure that OGS (oxygen generation system which ISS has) can overproduce oxygen in a spaceship? Just wondering the possibility how can spaceship explode by themselves without ...
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Why don't unmanned launch vehicles include launch escape system for payload?
Mention of Launch Escape System (LES) brings to mind images of the crew on board a spacecraft ejecting at launch; the crew being the most valuable cargo on board.
Launch vehicles may also be unmanned,...
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Will the James Webb Space Telescope be insured against launch failure?
Most commercial satellites are insured in case something bad happens on launch. Although the Ariane 5 is a fairly reliable rocket, a launch failure is not out of the question.
While other questions ...
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Would deorbiting a crippled Apollo spacecraft using the Saturn V third stage have been a reasonable contingency?
In the event of the loss of all fuel cells in an Apollo mission, would reaching orbit with the third stage, then using the relight to de-orbit somewhat near the normal location in the pacific be a ...
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Hard (15mph) landing, no retrorockets fired?
Today’s (12-11-21) Blue Origin New Shepard crew landing looked to be at full 15mph with no evidence of retro rockets firing or slowing of the capsule. Did they fire?
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Is SpaceX on the way to a reliability record? [duplicate]
One of the most striking phenomena of Falcon 9 launches is how smoothly they go, at least for the outside spectator.
SpaceX launches a lot. Apparently, they have now had 109 successful missions in a ...
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What size hole in the International Space Station would be catastrophic?
I was reading "Russia threatens criminal charges against a NASA astronaut" in arstechnica.com. Somewhere in the article it says: " At the time, a 2 mm breach was discovered in the ...
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Two consecutive high profile Moon landings fail, any common threads?
For the second time in a few months, we have seen a Moon landing fail at the last moment as computer communications failed. The Beresheet failure is well addressed here; did a similar thing happen ...
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KARI's homegrown KSLV-II almost hit the target orbit on its very first launch. How many OLVs can boast success on the first flight attempt?
Outdated: KSLV-II is a homegrown South Korean orbital launch vehicle. While KARI's launched the Russian-derived KSLV-I before, KSLV-II (or Nuri) uses only new, domestic, hitherto un-flight-tested ...
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Did the Cygnus Orb-3 failure disable/destroy both engines?
When the Antares 130 rocket carrying the Cygnus Orb-3 mission experienced an explosion in one of its turbopumps, did that lead rapidly (before crashing / before RSO triggered flight termination) to a ...
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What would have happened if the SPS did not ignite on Apollo 8?
I have been watching From the Earth to the Moon, and just saw Part 4 which dramatised the Apollo 8 mission.
During Apollo 8 the crew placed themselves in orbit around the moon, for one day, and then ...
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Would it be possible for a Falcon 9 booster stage to land after an in-flight launch failure?
We all know that the Falcon 9 is designed for reusability, but there still have been some hull losses. Though this hasn't happened yet, say a Falcon 9 experiences an in-flight failure where four core ...
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Riding out an exploding rocket
It is known that at least some of Challenger's crew survived the explosion, while conscious. If the cabin had a parachute, they may have lived. This is despite the Space Shuttle stack being one of the ...
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