Vanguard TV3 Failed Rocket Launch 1957-12-06 NASA

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Excerpt from "US Space Explorations", NASA Langley Research Center film L-703.

Originally a public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_TV-3

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Vanguard TV3, also called Vanguard Test Vehicle Three was the first attempt of the United States to launch a satellite into orbit around the Earth, after the successful Soviet launches of Sputnik 1 and 2. Vanguard TV3 was a small satellite designed to test the launch capabilities of the three-stage Vanguard and study the effects of the environment on a satellite and its systems in Earth orbit. It was also to be used to obtain geodetic measurements through orbit analysis. Solar cells on Vanguard TV3 were manufactured by Bell Laboratories.

At its launch attempt on December 6, 1957, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the booster ignited and began to rise, but about two seconds after liftoff, after rising about four feet (1.2 m), the rocket lost thrust and fell back to the launch pad. As it settled the fuel tanks ruptured and exploded, destroying the rocket and severely damaging the launch pad. The Vanguard 1A satellite was thrown clear and landed on the ground a short distance away with its transmitters still sending out a beacon signal. The satellite was damaged, however, and could not be reused. It is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.

The exact cause of the accident was not determined with certainty, but it appeared that the fuel system malfunctioned. Other engines of the same model were modified and did not fail...

Cause of failure

The exact cause of the accident was not determined with certainty due to limited telemetry instrumentation at this early phase, but Martin-Marietta concluded that low fuel tank pressure during the start procedure allowed some of the burning fuel in the combustion chamber to leak into the fuel system through the injector head before full propellant pressure was obtained from the turbopump. GE, on the other hand, argued that the problem was a loose fuel connection. In hindsight the first problem appeared to cause the second. Investigation concluded that tank and fuel system pressure were slightly lower than nominal, which resulted in insufficient pressure in the injector head. As a result, hot combustion gas backed up into the injector head and caused a large pressure spike. The injector rings completely burned through, followed by rupture of the combustion chamber. At T+1 second, a shock wave in the thrust section of the booster ruptured a fuel feed line, completely terminating engine thrust. GE technicians had failed to catch this design flaw during testing and a temporary fix was made by increasing tank pressure. Eventually, a further modification was made by using ethane gas to increase fuel force and prevent rough start transients.[8] The X-405 engine did not fail again on subsequent launches and static firing tests.

Reaction

After the launch failure, trading in the stock of the Martin Company, prime contractor for the project, was temporarily suspended by the New York Stock Exchange.

Newspapers in the United States published prominent headlines and articles describing the failure with plays on the name of the Russian satellite, Sputnik, such as "Flopnik", "Kaputnik", "Oopsnik", and "Stayputnik". The failure, reported in international media, was a humiliating loss of prestige for the United States, which had presented itself to the world as the leader in science and technology. The Soviet Union, the United States' rival in the Cold War, exploited the disaster. A few days after the incident, a Soviet delegate to the United Nations inquired solicitously whether the United States was interested in receiving aid earmarked for "undeveloped countries".

The concurrent project Explorer 1 proved successful a few weeks later, on 31 January 1958...