SpaceX - Static Fire Anomaly - AMOS-6 - 09-01-2016

What people said

mandevil · 2026-05 · Reference

In September 2016 almost exactly the same thing happened to a Falcon 9 at the Cape, also on a static fire. New Glenn is bigger, so bigger bang, but pretty much exactly the same thing. Off the top of my head, I recall in SpaceX's case it was a helium tank failure- a helium tank weld failed and the helium tank itself shot through the cryogenic oxygen, hit the far wall, and gave off a spark. But that sort of failure is only apparent when everything is pressurized correctly, which means tanks have to be full. The goal of the test is that you detect that sort of failure before it goes boom and then can fix it. [VIDEO] is a video of SpaceX's failure.

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mhandley · 2023-04 · Reference

And they also have previous painful experience of destroying a Falcon 9 pad. [VIDEO] Really can't afford to repeat that if they are to make the timeline for using Starship as NASA's next lunar lander.

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someperson · 2020-12 · Reference

An interesting thing here is SpaceX are building TWO launchpads. Which will definitely help prevent delays if an when there is an AMOS-6 [1] or Orb-3 [2] type explosion that destroys the launchpad. It may also help for rapidly testing orbital refueling in 2022, though the plan is to do orbital refueling with 1 launch pad, 1 Super Heavy and 2 Starships (1 standard, 1 refueler) with 1 hour turnaround times between launches (and 5-6 launches) before Starship is ready to depart for the journey to Mars. [1] [VIDEO] [2] [LINK]

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