NASA official reveals details of SpaceX rocket accident earlier this month

During a mission overview press conference for the upcoming Crew Dragon launch to the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this month, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager provided additional insight into the reasons behind a rare SpaceX Falcon 9 second stage anomaly. The anomaly led to the shutdown of SpaceX’s worker rocket, and the company announced yesterday that it will be ready to fly again tomorrow after completing required investigations to help the FAA determine that the failure does not pose a threat to human safety.

The briefing covered NASA and SpaceX’s Crew-9 mission, SpaceX’s fourth Dragon launch in 2024 and the 45th Dragon mission to the ISS to date.

SpaceX conducts hot fire test of Falcon 9 second stage before launching NASA astronauts to ISS

In his opening remarks, Stich shared that the second stage of the Crew 9 mission is currently in McGregor, Texas, where it will undergo a hot fire through the end of this month. This test will evaluate SpaceX’s changes to the second stage design following the anomaly. Stich added: “NASA has participated step by step” with the FAA’s investigation of SpaceX. He praised SpaceX’s transparency during the process and explained that NASA teams “embedded in the investigation” and recorded all changes made to the rocket.

Later, during the call, the NASA official added more details about the anomaly. A late evening press release from SpaceX yesterday said that a faulty clamp in a sensor line in the second stage led to the failure. SpaceX announced that this clamp eventually led to a leak of liquid oxygen in the rocket, which cooled the engine’s components and caused damage during a second burn.

Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s Dragon mission manager, said the location where the error occurred “two connections instead of one, which was due to a customer requirement on another mission.” SpaceX “left it in this configuration for this flight,” which caused a small crack to form in an area where liquid oxygen flows from the rocket’s combustion chamber to allow a sensor to measure the pressure. Walker added that this location “is slightly more susceptible to vibrations, as this rocket is gimbal mounted and fires,” which eventually led to liquid oxygen leaking out and causing the anomaly.

NASA employee Stich built on Walker’s statement and said that this is great evidence for the “Attention to detail required in Space travel.” He went into the technical details and explained that “SpaceX made a small change to another, a different transducer. There was internal transducer pressure management for this particular sensor line that was connected to the sensor. line. “These changes have been made”probably” without “without knowing exactly how sensitive this area is to vibration. And, um, and how the insulation was attached and how this clamp was attached.”

While SpaceX removed the clamp and conducted an analysis, Stich revealed that while the analysis looked good on the surface, a combination of factors, such as the materials used and the manufacturing of the pipe, were major factors in the accident. However, the NASA official went so far as to say that even his agency “We looked into the change and could not find any problems on NASA’s side either..”

He praised SpaceX for “Go back and look at this area and any other areas on the vehicle that may have a similar problem” by conducting qualification tests similar to those before, but “perhaps without having carried out the thorough tests,” should have been carried out.