A joke on Reddit that I saw: Congratulations to the winner of last night's presidential debate: The Voyager probes, headed away from the Earth at 62000 km/hr
If by 'plausible' you mean that an exploding helium bottle could have caused an explosion like the one we saw, yes. However, the article's assertion that 'it is the most likely scenario' is not plausible.
It is always risky trying to get an accurate analysis of a very complex subject from a news...
Huh, I come to the opposite conclusion from the same data. In CRS-7 they were focused on the strut, and if AMOS-6 was caused by a rare tank manufacture defect, no amount of COPV study after CRS-7 would reveal that
do we know what pressure it was at when Amos-6 went boom? Agree that if it wasn't under substantial pressure failure would be unlikely, but the launch stress is relevant if it was a thermal-stress carbon fiber delamination
@geoffc mentioned he'd read speculation that perhaps if there is uneven thermal expansion as the bottle is slowly submerged during filling of the lox tank, maybe that could cause a rupture
i haven't seen any reference to the pressure levels, or how close the fueling was to being finished
it was 8 minutes before the planned static fire. i imagine one could estimate from that how close it was to being full based on the fueling practices before launch
in truth, hubby woke in pain night before last due to a kidney stone. we went to the clinic twice that night.
first time the shot they gave him for the pain wasn't enough, so we went back...
lucky for him it isn't in a position that is painful right now. it shifted, and there is a window of opportunity to operate before it becomes an issue again.
my husband has extraordinary pain tolerance. it is a minor superpower of his.
