SpaceX’s early engineers crawled inside an imploding rocket on a jet

SpaceX almost died aboard a C-17 plane over Hawaii.

In 2008, before the company successfully launched a single rocket, two dozen SpaceX engineers were transporting its Falcon 1 rocket to Hawaii inside an Air Force aircraft. From there, a barge transported it to the company’s launch facilities in the Marshall Islands for a new launch attempt. It was the company’s last chance: if it failed, SpaceX was over.

But as the jet descended before landing, the SpaceXers heard “a loud, terrible, booming noise,” according to a new book by Eric Berger, journalist and senior space editor for Ars Technica. The rocket imploded due to a pressure imbalance. So Zach Dunn, one of SpaceX’s greenest engineers, crawled into his stomach. His quick fix saved the business – and possibly his own life.

Berger’s book, “Liftoff,” documents this moment and other crazy, dizzying events of SpaceX’s early years – including the construction of a launch pad on a remote island, a mutiny staged by engineers trapped on it. island without food and the rush to send a commercial rocket into orbit.

HarperCollins Publishers

SpaceX eventually reached orbit using the same rocket that nearly collapsed in mid-air.

SpaceX engineers faced mid-flight emergency

In September 2008, SpaceX was almost strapped for cash. The company had failed in all of its attempts to launch a rocket into orbit, so it did not win any contracts. Musk was strapped for cash to pump into SpaceX and Tesla, both of whom were floundering as

recession
hit. SpaceX had enough resources for just one additional launch attempt.

Musk gave his engineers six weeks for the Hail Mary effort. When ready to transport the Falcon 1 rocket from California to the Marshall Islands, engineers piled into the C-17 jet at Los Angeles International Airport. During the first hours of the flight to Hawaii, they sailed smoothly over the Pacific, relaxing in the seats of the luggage compartment surrounding the rocket. Someone blew up a guitar.

But on the descent, loud bangs and pings rang out in the cargo area as bumps appeared along the rocket body. Engineers realized that its liquid oxygen fuel tank was not diffusing enough air to keep up with the pressure changes as the jet descended.

The reservoir “breathed through a straw,” writes Berger.

As the pressure in the aircraft’s cargo bay increased relative to the pressure inside the rocket’s fuel tank, the Falcon 1 began to warp.

“The first thought I had was that this thing was going to implode and bounce back,” Anne Chinnery, who was then managing SpaceX’s launch operations, told Berger. “And that would kill all of us who were sitting next to the rocket in the booster seats on the plane. So I jumped up and told everyone to get to the front. of the rocket. “

Dunn, who had joined SpaceX as an intern in 2006 and then quickly became a propulsion engineer, was on the verge of saving the rocket, its engineers, and SpaceX himself.

In the belly of the beast

Zachary Dunn / Relativity Space

An engineer asked the jet pilots to fly the plane higher, where the atmospheric pressure was lower. But the pilots only had enough fuel to circle the base once more before landing. According to Berger, this bought SpaceX engineers about 10 minutes.

They opened the shrink wrap wrapped around the rocket and found the C-17’s onboard tool kit.

Dunn told engineer Mike Sheehan to hold his ankles and shoot him if the rocket started to explode. It squirmed in the Falcon 1 interstage – the section between the rocket’s bulky base, which propels it through the air, and the smaller section that continues into orbit.

In the darkness of Falcon 1’s belly, Dunn crawled over to the liquid oxygen tank, sharp rocket pieces scratching his back. He reached a large pressurization line leading to the fuel tank, opened it with a key, and heard the hiss of air entering. Then he called Sheehan to help him.

“Sheenhan took this as a cry for help, pulling Dunn out of the intersection through the tangle of pressurization lines and valves,” Berger wrote. “It hurt like hell, but Dunn emerged and found his efforts paying off.

The SpaceXers returned to their seats and the rocket re-inflated in front of them as the jet descended into Hawaii.

The rocket launch that saved SpaceX

Although it survived the flight, the Falcon 1 was damaged by its brush from the implosion. With just a week to spare, the SpaceX team rushed to take it apart, replace the broken parts, fix the rest, and reassemble their rocket.

SpaceX

Then, on September 28, Falcon 1 came to life on Omelek Island, lifted off the ground, and went into orbit.

In the control room, the team members “just exploded,” Dunn told Berger. “We went completely crazy. We were all jumping. We were hugging. Screaming. It was a fair celebration.”

SpaceX had proven that its rockets could leave the planet. Subsequently, the company gathered enough contracts to keep the funding flowing.

Dunn stayed at SpaceX for another decade, eventually becoming senior vice president of production and launch. Last year, he left SpaceX to oversee manufacturing at Relativity Space, a startup that aims to automate the rocket production process with 3D printing.