As I expected, this press release didn't mention any potential problems
encountered during the flight. I wonder how long it will take to look at
the flight data and determine exactly what happened during the SRB and upper
stage separation and what that press release will read like?
Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon
Be nice to see the separation from the POV of the onboard cameras. That
we haven't seems telling.
Sylvia.
Not really. Comm dropouts at sep were expected as the antennas went in
and out of blockage. There were video recorders on the SRB mounted
cameras but those are stored on board, not downlinked. Based on shuttle
flight history, I don't expect to see that video for 3-4 days.
It could well have been written before the flight. ;-)
> I wonder how long it will take to look at the flight data and determine exactly what happened during the SRB and upper
> stage separation and what that press release will read like?
Here's NASA animation showing how the separation was supposed to go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZfrxUgZSuM
Note the four separation rockets on the simulated upper stage firing at
around the 45 second mark; if one of those didn't fire, that would
indeed cause it to swing around 180 degrees under the thrust of the
other three.
There's a unexplained dent on the bottom segment of the recovered SRB
BTW: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10385536-239.html
Pat
>Here's NASA animation showing how the separation was supposed to go:
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZfrxUgZSuM
>Note the four separation rockets on the simulated upper stage firing at
>around the 45 second mark; if one of those didn't fire, that would
>indeed cause it to swing around 180 degrees under the thrust of the
>other three.
That's the it was 'supposed to go' in a universe where the USS had
seperation rockets. We don't live in that universe.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
> There's a unexplained dent on the bottom segment of the recovered SRB BTW:
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10385536-239.html
>
> Pat
Gotta love some of the comments:
"This type of proven space travel is 40 times safer than the outdated Space
Shuttle..."
Oh really? 40 times safer? Huh? Wonder where he pulled that number from.
--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.
> There's a unexplained dent on the bottom segment of the recovered SRB
> BTW: http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10385536-239.html
_Big_ dent; could have been parachute problems, photo and articles here:
http://nasawatch.com/archives/2009/10/ares-1-x-first.html
Pat
Parachute problems; one chute only partially deployed, then collapsed.
It may then have whipped around, partially deflating another of the
chutes: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ares1x/091029dent/
Pat
>
>"Jeff Findley" <jeff.f...@ugs.nojunk.com> wrote in message
>news:e2a18$4ae8c5e8$927a2cda$20...@FUSE.NET...
>
>>>
>>> NASA'S ARES I-X ROCKET COMPLETES SUCCESSFUL FLIGHT TEST
>>
>> As I expected, this press release didn't mention any potential problems
>> encountered during the flight. I wonder how long it will take to look at the
>> flight data and determine exactly what happened during the SRB and upper stage
>> separation and what that press release will read like?
>
>It should read...NASA's new man-rated rocket, on it's first launch, would've
>killed the crew, had there been one.
It's extraordinarily unlikely the crew would have been killed.
Very unlikely. The event, while not great, doesn't appear to have been all
that violent. Most likely there would have been an abort, a rough ride, and
water landing.
>
> Remember the first flight of the shuttle? What would they be
> saying if that flight had similar...."dynamical issues at staging"?
> Would they be high-fiving each other and claiming complete
> success?
>
Remember the first flight of the shuttle and the issues it had on re-entry?
In that case having a crew onboard probably helped save it.
That is, of course, an opinion, not a fact.
I'd say it's hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from Ares I-X since it
has so little in common with the actual Ares I design. That said, if this
had been a real flight and the real upper stage had turned sideways during
stage separation, the launch escape system on top of Orion surely would have
been activated. The launch escape system won't be 100% reliable (none is).
But that's a couple of unlikely scenarios strung together, so who's to say
what the chances will be on the real first manned flight, if it actually
happens?
STS-1 took some pretty big risks because that vehicle had NEVER flown
before. Subsonic drop tests of Enterprise were as close as they had gotten
to a test flight, and that's a tiny fraction of the entire flight envelope.
Young and Crippin had some pretty big balls to fly STS-1, even with e-seats
and full pressure suits. The shuttle landed safely on that flight, but
STS-1 certainly wasn't without incident.
Well hats off to any escape system that could save that flight.
I thought the extra powerful escape system was meant for the
boost portion of the flight? Do they even have any abort plans
yet for the flight just after staging?
>
>>
>> Remember the first flight of the shuttle? What would they be
>> saying if that flight had similar...."dynamical issues at staging"?
>> Would they be high-fiving each other and claiming complete
>> success?
>>
>
> Remember the first flight of the shuttle and the issues it had on re-entry? In
> that case having a crew onboard probably helped save it.
Don't really remember that. I must admit that I suffered a childhood
trauma related to staging. Again and again my Estes two-stage
rocket would always explode when it was supposed to stage.
Couldn't figure it out, used up all my allowance for weeks.
Really stuck in my craw~
They can't do anything similar to that 100% reliable Zionist/Nazi/ARPA
Saturn V.
So, the Ares crew is expendable, and that's roughly 15 tonnes of added
payload savings right off the bat.
~ BG
It's all public funded and at the same time need-to-know. Go figure,
it's all taboo/nondisclosure rated, and they want lots more of our
hard earned loot.
~ BG