SpaceX the Alan Notes

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla. — After a successful liftoff from the Eastern Range, 45th Space Wing, Space X and NASA officials experienced an anomaly of the Falcon 9 CRS-7 mission June 28 at approximately 148 seconds into flight.

Range officials are currently evaluating the data to determine the cause of the anomaly and additional information will be released as it becomes available.

A mishap investigation board will convene to determine the cause of the launch failure.

NASA’s Stephanie Scheirholz reports that the CRS-7 anomaly investigation will be led by Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of Mission Assurance for SpaceX.

“We’re in an extraordinary position to find out what happened and get back to flight as soon as we safely and reliably can, ” said Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX. “We will pour even more effort into finding out every possible source in the future. This doesn’t change our plans, we’re very confident in our team, in our operations team and our technical team.”

The following is a statement from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on the loss Sunday of the SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services 7 (CRS-7) mission.

“We are disappointed in the loss of the latest SpaceX cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. However, the astronauts are safe aboard the station and have sufficient supplies for the next several months. We will work closely with SpaceX to understand what happened, fix the problem and return to flight. The commercial cargo program was designed to accommodate loss of cargo vehicles. We will continue operation of the station in a safe and effective way as we continue to use it as our test bed for preparing for longer duration missions farther into the solar system.

“A Progress vehicle is ready to launch July 3, followed in August by a Japanese HTV flight. Orbital ATK, our other commercial cargo partner, is moving ahead with plans for its next launch later this year.

“SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first six cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success. We will work with and support SpaceX to assess what happened, understand the specifics of the failure and correct it to move forward. This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback. Today’s launch attempt will not deter us from our ambitious human spaceflight program.”