| Failure | Supporting Evidence | Detracting Evidence | Probability | Notes |
|---|
| Boost Phase Piston Deployment | - Vehicle separated
- Piston Actuated
- Data from the Marsa was not recovered and it could have fired the charges -> If it did it should have changed the TeleMega voltage too
| - TeleMega data shows good voltage on both pyro channels until T+11s
| Eliminated | |
| Fin Flutter | - Initial Fin failure at root
- Fin stiffness not measured prior to flight
| - All fin failures happen at the root
- Analysis shows flutter velocity >>> M3 (where?)
| Moderate | It'd be awesome if we could find a fin |
| Fin Shear | - Initial fin failure at root
- Fin Analysis was a known analysis weak point
- Flight Article not tested
| - Very, very positive margins for design case (were these done correctly?, even if they weren't we would have had to been wrong by a factor of 4, and our results were not dissimilar from other amateur rockets)
| Highly Likely | It'd be awesome if we could find a fin |
| Fin Thermal Weakening | - Thermal environment is known to be above working temperature of epoxy system
- Flight article not tested
| - Remaining carbon fiber on fin can does not show evidence of thermal damage
| Moderate | It'd be awesome if we could find a fin This may be a contributing factor to other failure modes |
| Fin Tip Disbond | - Flight article not tested
| - Very positive test margins
| Low | It would have been amazing if we found the fins |
| Asymmetric Nozzle Failure | - Nozzle insert is missing
- Nozzle carrier step exhibited significant erosion
| - Successful static fire
- Can this produce enough of an asymmetric force to cause the observed dynamics?
- Recovered motor featured a symmetrical hole at the end, so if the nozzle was lost early it shouldn't have vectored thrust Could the nozzle insert or phenolic have failed asymmetrically, but left a symmetric hole?
- Video shows distinct change in flame pattern after rocket leaves its previous flight path, which is likely when the nozzle was lost
| Low | P-Tap data on the LE DAQ can retire this failure mode, or further indict it. |
| Wind Shear | - Observed vehicle dynamics align with the vehicle clearing mountain ranges around FAR
| - Forecast and NAS China Lake report low winds
| Low | May have been a contributing factor in a compound failure See Therion 3 Postflight Report (Why? I see no similarity between these flights) |
| Fin Can below spec | - We have literally no composite quality standard
- We did not test the flight article
- We have literally no quantitative indications that the fin can was built to drawing
| | Highly Likely | Interlaminar shear strength could be degraded by dust contamination Fin Can sanding may have abraded through critical layers of carbon tip to tip |
| Coning | - This vehicle was all over the place on TeleMega data
| - Video does not support that coning occurred There was a weird spinning bit, but I think that was after the first failure?
- Though the data shows increasing roll rate with time, it does not exhibit coupling between the roll rate and either yaw or pitch until both values spike simultaneously, which was probably the instant of the failure
| Moderate | We need to understand when coning happens and check the data. |
| Nose Cone Collapse | | | Moderate | Nose cone not recovered |