[X] My Assistant

[lyford]

If you're gonna go bad, you might as well make it good!

What are your "favorite" launch failures?

(pic snagged from Rocket Explosions)

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[dvandorn]

I don't have an image or the footage handy, but there was this early Thor or Delta launch, back in the late 1950s or early 1960s, when the missile lifted off, set on its side, and arced *just* over the Banana River, where it impacted and exploded.

The thing was supposed to be an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM). However, that flight was re-designated an IBRM -- for the one and only deployed Inter-Banana River Missile.

-the other Doug

[Bill Harris]

The saddest rocket failure I remember is the Vanguard carrying an Explorer satellite, aka Kaputnik. The toppling nosecone added to the pathos!

--Bill

[ilbasso]

What amazes me is the number of these boosters - of all sorts - that were blowing up with great frequency in the late 1950's and early 1960's...and then some guys with BIG cojones volunteered to ride on top of them!

[ljk4-1]

The saddest rocket failure I remember is the Vanguard carrying an Explorer satellite, aka Kaputnik.  The toppling nosecone added to the pathos!

--Bill

And supposedly the satellite tumbled out onto the tarmac and began signalling!

[dot.dk]

"we've had an anomaly"

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9701/17/rocket.exp...xplosion.36.mov

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

(1) CBS spent 6 straight months following the assembly of one Juno 2 booster that was supposed to launch an Explorer satellite in mid-1959, with the intention of telecasting an hour-long TV show on the subject. The plans were hastily cancelled after said rocket lifted off, instantly started to turn upside down and toward the cameramen, and was blown up in mid-air 5 seconds after launch. (You may have seen the photos of that one; it would have been Explorer 6 had it succeeded, and the satellite type on it was later successfully relaunched as Explorer 7.)

(2) One of the Mercury 7 -- I believe it was Alan Shepard -- said that in mid-1960 NASA invited all the Mercury astronauts to watch the first test flight of a fully detailed unmanned Mercury capsule on an Atlas. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that this launch was Mercury-Atlas 1, which blew up with no warning at all a minute after launch when it hit Max Q -- and, to make the effect even more comforting, this particular capsule was not equipped with an escape rocket and got blown to bits along with the rocket.

(3) Nor should we forget such immortal failures as the first Atlas-Able launch of a lunar Pioneer (nose shroud fell off, followed by the probe and then the third stage), or the first attempt to fly an unmanned Mercury on a Redstone. (The rocket started to lift off, shut down its engine one second later due to a faulty sensor, and bumped still upright back down on the pad without exploding. The capsule, having assumed that the rocket had shut down normally at the end of its burn, immediately ejected its escape rocket -- which took off spectacularly from the top of the rocket while it was still sitting on the launch pad -- then sampled the environment outside and concluded that it was already time to open its parachute and start scattering radar chaff and flashing its recovery light beacon, all of which it did while still sitting on top of the rocket. The capsule itself being undamaged, it was reflown on a replacement Redstone just a month later completely successfully.) I got a whole 10th-grade English composition just out of the accounts of these early failures.

[dvandorn]

Actually, Bruce, the way I always heard the story, MR-1 was reflown as MR-1A some weeks later, using the same capsule *and* the same Redstone booster. The Redstone problem was not with the missile itself, but with the GSE power plug that attached to the base of the missile. A technician had filed off a small bit of one of the two prongs on the power plug, to make it fit better, but that resulted in the plug's prongs disconnecting a few milliseconds apart. It happened at the exact time a mechanical sequencer was sampling the voltages on both sides of the power line, and resulted in the Redstone shutdown. But nothing was wrong with the missile, the fins weren't even bent by it settling back down onto them.

However, the Redstone was *almost* rendered unusable that day. Once the 'chutes had been deployed (and, make no mistake, it was the drogue, the main and the reserve main 'chutes, all deployed at once), there was a great concern that winds could fill the 'chutes and pull the Redstone over, ruining both the missile and the capsule. And none of von Braun's men wanted to go out to the rocket and safe it, because it was still fully fueled -- and the Germans had seen what happens when a fully-fueled rocket tips over.

One of von Braun's men started saying something about having a rifle out in his car. The Americans wanted to know what the hell he was going to do with a rifle, so von Braun explained that, back in the V-2 development days, they had a bird on the pad that was dead but fully fueled, so they took a rifle and punctured the tanks from a safe distance, allowing the tanks to depressurize and vent and making the rocket safe to approach.

Von Braun's deputy (I know the name, I just can't remember it right now) had to be actively dissuaded from getting his rifle and forceably depressurizing the tanks. Fortunately, winds stayed light and they were able to get the missile safed (and the chutes gathered up) before anything really bad happened.

BTW -- that whole episode was later dubbed "The Day They Launched the Escape Tower." Funny thing is, the escape tower jett motor was loud and flashy, and the tower took off REALLY fast -- such that the politicians who had been invited to watch were very impressed at just how fast these rockets flew away! They had to be told that the rocket was still on the pad...

-the other Doug

[edstrick]

"I created a home for all our pyromania..."

When Spacecraft films first got started, I emailed them a suggestion that they produce a "Launch Bloopers Reel". I don't have the Liftoff DVD set yet, but maybe the flagroom content on that resulted from my suggestion (they never replied to my email).

During the CBS News non-stop coverage of Apollo 11 on the moon, during the really slack period, they ran a compilation of launch bloopers. It may have run 20 minutes, maybe less. It had ones I'd never seen before and probably never since. But the climax was beyond belief, LITERALLY.

Somebody took a Saturn 5 launch, and used some nifty film compositng to replace the rocket with a Lighthouse. As the lighthouse is climbing for altitude, somebody runs out of the door on the observation deck and is running around and around the circular deck as the pseudo-rocket hauls a## for space!

R.O.T.F.L.M.A.O.!

[ljk4-1]

(1)  CBS spent 6 straight months following the assembly of one Juno 2 booster that was supposed to launch an Explorer satellite in mid-1959, with the intention of telecasting an hour-long TV show on the subject.  The plans were hastily cancelled after said rocket lifted off, instantly started to turn upside down and toward the cameramen, and was blown up in mid-air 5 seconds after launch.  (You may have seen the photos of that one; it would have been Explorer 6 had it succeeded, and the satellite type on it was later successfully relaunched as Explorer 7.)

(2)  One of the Mercury 7 -- I believe it was Alan Shepard -- said that in mid-1960 NASA invited all the Mercury astronauts to watch the first test flight of a fully detailed unmanned Mercury capsule on an Atlas.  The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that this launch was Mercury-Atlas 1, which blew up with no warning at all a minute after launch when it hit Max Q -- and, to make the effect even more comforting, this particular capsule was not equipped with an escape rocket and got blown to bits along with the rocket.

(3)  Nor should we forget such immortal failures as the first Atlas-Able launch of a lunar Pioneer (nose shroud fell off, followed by the probe and then the third stage), or the first attempt to fly an unmanned Mercury on a Redstone.  (The rocket started to lift off, shut down its engine one second later due to a faulty sensor, and bumped still upright back down on the pad without exploding.  The capsule, having assumed that the rocket had shut down normally at the end of its burn, immediately ejected its escape rocket -- which took off spectacularly from the top of the rocket while it was still sitting on the launch pad -- then sampled the environment outside and concluded that it was already time to open its parachute and start scattering radar chaff and flashing its recovery light beacon, all of which it did while still sitting on top of the rocket.  The capsule itself being undamaged, it was reflown on a replacement Redstone just a month later completely successfully.)  I got a whole 10th-grade English composition just out of the accounts of these early failures.

I wonder if CBS or someone still has all that film footage of the Juno 2/Explorer program? Certainly an important historical record of a byegone era.

What was it Chuck Yeager said in The Right Stuff about the Mercury astronauts -

"Monkeys? You think a money knows he's sittin' on top of a rocket that might explode? These astronaut boys they know that, see? Well, I'll tell you something, it takes a special kind of man to volunteer for a suicide mission, especially one that's on TV. Ol' Gus, he did alright."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086197/quotes

[odave]

The launch failure I'm most fond of is one of my own, when I was a kid doing model rocketry. This was back when both fuses and electrical igniters were considered valid launch systems. Since I didn't have allowance saved up for a fancy electrical system, I stuck with fuses. Besides, I always thought fuses were a much more romantic way to start a rocket on its way

One day, when I *had* to do a launch with my buddies, I found that the only length of fuse I had left was too wide for the nozzle on the engine. When the flame got up to the engine, there wasn't enough oxygen for it to continue burning. Not knowing any better, I took a screwdriver to the engine's nozzle, making it wide enough to accommodate a new length of fuse.

When the engine did ignite, the chipped, irregular nozzle created all sorts of interesting and chaotic thrust vectors. I don't have any pictures, but it was similar to the one posted by lyford at the start of this thread. Basically, the rocket went everywhere but straight up, scattering the spectators wildly before it crashed to the ground and deployed its parachute.

Luckily nobody got hurt. Upon hearing the news of the failure, my dad helped me finally buy that fancy electrical launcher

[Tesheiner]

(3)  ... or the first attempt to fly an unmanned Mercury on a Redstone.  (The rocket started to lift off, shut down its engine one second later due to a faulty sensor, and bumped still upright back down on the pad without exploding.  The capsule, having assumed that the rocket had shut down normally at the end of its burn, immediately ejected its escape rocket -- which took off spectacularly from the top of the rocket while it was still sitting on the launch pad -- then sampled the environment outside and concluded that it was already time to open its parachute and start scattering radar chaff and flashing its recovery light beacon, all of which it did while still sitting on top of the rocket.  The capsule itself being undamaged, it was reflown on a replacement Redstone just a month later completely successfully.)  I got a whole 10th-grade English composition just out of the accounts of these early failures.

That was a "good" one!

PS: Didn't know that the capsule was reflown.

[lyford]

The capsule, having assumed that the rocket had shut down normally at the end of its burn, immediately ejected its escape rocket

Is that footage used in the movie The Right Stuff at the end of the blowing up rockets montage, with a champagne cork *pop*?

edstrick, I have never gotten around to ordering that particular DVD of "rocket porn", but I may have to now...

And here's some memories from the Homebrew Club - XPRIZE!

Rubicon 1
Not supposed to do that...
Its "passenger"
Going, going...
Gone!

Armadillo Aerospace
What Goes Up (4.1 MB MPEG video)

Starchaser
Nobody got hurt

And to prove that money is no object - DC-X (accent on the "ex")
2.4 MB Quicktime Movie

Keep 'em coming!

BTW - if anyone is wondering as to the origin of the thread name....

[Bill Harris]

Those are great clips, Lyford. People like things that go booooom.

BTW, I finally got around to googling 'richard courant orion' and yes, that was insane...

--Bill

[tty]

My own favorite launch blooper concerns a cruise missile, SM-62, # 53-8172. This was the first long-range trial of the supposedly operational Snark D in December 1956.
It was supposed to fly from the Cape to Puerto Rico, then turn back and land at Cape Canaveral, all by its own INS. However after a while it started diverging towards the south and no commands from the tracking stations had any effect. Neither had the self-destruct orders. Fighters were scrambled from Puerto Rico, but too late to catch up.
53-8172 was last heard of crossing the coast of Venezuela and presumably still rests somewhere in the amazonian jungle.

An epitaph from a Florida newspaper:

They shot a Snark into the air
It fell to ground, they know not where


tty