Let’s try again. The separtion itself did not fail. They had separated then the first stage bumped back into the “attached” postion due to the residual thrust that wasn’t accounted for in the separation timing. At that point the stages were nested together but not physical connected. Then second stage lit while it’s nozzle was inside the first stage. Resulting in damage to both the first and second stage. I don’t know the details of the damage but it was enough to result in the mission failure.

anyone?

Some people wanted to launch a couple of test flights with just the 1st stage live, before testing the 1st and 2nd stages and then all 3 stages, and then with a live Apollo capsule.

I think it makes sense in this type of systems to launch the whole enchilada. You don’t test a car with a working front end but a mock up (well, monocoque mock up in a modern car) back end either.

The problem with building systems is to know when to upgrade. It’s very tempting to push late improvements into demos because it is a lot easier to change before freezing the design. But this was a late demo and they payed the prize for it.

@ The Chemist:

here’s where I think you may be wrong:

Your list makes a lot of sense. However, seeing the inexpensive and unobtrusive type of multisensor systems that you can use today, it is probably a lot easier to install them, record all of them and pick out the information when you need it.

For example to understand failure – and perhaps that is exactly what SpaceX has done, all they needed where a conveniently located camera, accelerator or pressure sensor to confirm what happened. I have at times followed another startup, Armadillo Aerospace, which have done this type of sensor integration to great effect.

Dunno about the calibration need, modern cameras and accelerators won’t need much if any.

The stages did separate. The problem was that after separation the first stage caught up to and recontacted with the second stage. The second stage did fire fire at that point but the nozzle was still inside the first first stage. It was not designed for that and bad things happened.

I was wondering the same thing.

I’m too lazy to look up the actual numbers, but I’m willing to bet that the USAF and NASA lost DOZENS of Atlases alone. Maybe more rockets that will be built in the lifetime of the Falcon program.