You have to take the subjective statements out of the equation. AFAIK the mission had two objectives:
1. Loft Dragon into an orbit from which it can chase and catch the ISS.
2. Loft the Orbcomm test/demo payload into some orbit specified by the customer.
During the launch they lost an engine. They still achieved objective 1. They did not achieve objective 2. The most interesting thing to know will be why they didn't achieve objective 2.
Sounds like they needed a second stage to get the Orbcomm payload to the correct orbit, but they were too close to ISS to detach the first stage rockets. This is because, after compensating for the loss of one of the engines, they didn't have enough fuel to get to the minimum-safe distance to detach the stage 1 boosters.
The engine failed prior to MECO-1 (where the first two scheduled shutdowns occur) so there were still 8 lit engines. There's no capability to restart the engines that have been shut down.
> (Don't laugh - based on the description that Elon gave in an interview, the failure of their third launch was due to a sensor that concluded they were in high in the atmosphere while they were still on the ground.
Source? If you're talking about F1-003, you're incorrect. If you're talking about something else, I'm interested.
And yes, I had remembered it wrong from when I watched it a few weeks ago. I remembered the bit about dropping below sea level pressure, but not the rest of the cascade.
