![]() Musk said the failure and subsequent launch delays likely will cost the company several hundred million dollars in lost revenue. Lost in the SpaceX mishap, along with supplies and equipment for the station crew, was the first of two docking mechanisms needed to enable commercial crew capsules being built by Boeing and SpaceX to dock with the lab complex starting in 2017. The Russian cargo craft reached orbit, but it suffered severe damage moments before, or during, release from the booster's upper stage and crashed back to Earth on May 8. It was the first failure in 19 flights of a SpaceX Falcon 9 and the second loss in a row for the space station program following the April 28 failure of a Russian Soyuz rocket carrying a Progress supply ship. "We could have saved Dragon if we had the right software" on board. "That's an unfortunate thing," Musk said. He said a software change will be implemented on future space station resupply flights to enable the Dragon's parachutes, normally used to lower the craft to a gentle ocean landing at the end of a mission, to deploy in the event of a launch failure. Musk said engineers were able to receive telemetry from the spacecraft until it disappeared over the horizon on the way to a catastrophic ocean impact. The Dragon cargo capsule it was carrying, loaded with more than 4,000 pounds of equipment and supplies bound for the International Space Station, apparently broke away from disintegrating rocket intact. She has been underground at three of the largest particle accelerators in the world and would really like to know what the heck dark matter is.The first stage continued firing, but moments later the rocket broke up in a shower of debris. ![]() In 2018, Calla left to join NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory media team where she oversees astronomy, physics, exoplanets and the Cold Atom Lab mission. Calla studied physics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is originally from Sandy, Utah. Previously, Calla worked at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (hands down the best office building ever) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California. From 2010 to 2014 she was a producer for The Physics Central Podcast. Prior to joining Calla worked as a freelance writer, with her work appearing in APS News, Symmetry magazine, Scientific American, Nature News, Physics World, and others. She enjoys writing about black holes, exploding stars, ripples in space-time, science in comic books, and all the mysteries of the cosmos. Original article on .Ĭalla Cofield joined 's crew in October 2014. Today's launch attempt will not deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight program."įollow Calla Cofield. This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback. "We will work with and support SpaceX to assess what happened, understand the specifics of the failure and correct it to move forward. "SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first six cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success," Bolden said in a statement. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden issued a statement shortly after the June 28 failure, announcing NASA's support of SpaceX. The June 28 launch would have been the company's seventh cargo mission. SpaceX has a $1.6 billion dollar contract with NASA to fly at least 12 unmanned cargo runs to the International Space Station. ![]() In the wake of the incident, SpaceX has delayed any future launches, the news website Spaceflight Now reported last month. "Because this is going to be launching astronauts in a couple of years, so it needs to be super, super reliable." "The goal is to have the most reliable rocket ever," Musk said in Idaho. About two minutes later, the rocket began to release large clouds of smoke that obscured it seconds later, the smoke began to dissipate, but no rocket could be seen - only a shower of debris. Video coverage of the June 28 launch shows the rocket and its payload lifting off from the launch pad successfully. At that same event, Musk said, "The data does seem to be quite difficult to interpret," and that "Whatever happened was not straightforward," according to the website The Verge. ![]() Musk told an audience at the International Space Station Research and Development conference in Boston that "there is still no clear theory that fits all the data," according to the Boston Globe. ![]()
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