Does anyone know what regulatory hoops Red Bull Stratos had to jump through to do the flight, other than getting the air space from the FSDO?
Category Archives: Space
Baumgartner
…is about to jump. He’s almost to altitude. Here’s a live link. He just beat Kittinger’s altitude record on his way to his ultimate altitude.
[Update a while after the successful dive and landing]
Here’s the Gray Lady’s take:
“It was harder than I expected,” Mr. Baumgarter said after returning by helicopter to mission control in Roswell. “Trust me, when you stand up there on top of the world, you become so humble. It’s not about breaking records anymore. It’s not about getting scientific data. It’s all about coming home.”
I’m going to have to add this to my space safety paper. No one in the government was responsible for regulating his safety to jump from a balloon. Why would they do it for him to jump from a rocket?
[Update a few minutes later]
An interesting coincidence (it has to be that, because he wanted to do it earlier this week). The first supersonic flight of a human in a suit took place on the 65th anniversary of the first controlled supersonic flight of an aircraft. And he’s going to do it again with an F-15 to commemorate it.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Talk about one giant leap for a man.
Only In LA
That Hit Piece On SpaceX
I critique it, over at PJMedia.
The Age Of Commercial Spaceflight Begins
The Orange County Register has an editorial favorable to commercial space, with quits from Yours Truly.
SpaceX’s Engine Failure
Why it could be good news. My piece at Popular Mechanics.
More On The SpaceX Anomaly
…from Alan Boyle. I don’t think this is quite right, though:
What caused the engine’s sudden pressure release, which was apparently strong enough to blow off the fairing?
I think this is a misstatement of the issue. I could be wrong, because we’re still awaiting clarification from SpaceX, but my understanding is that when they shut the engine down, and there was no pressure field coming from the nozzle, the differential pressure resulting from Max Q resulted in it “imploding” inward and breaking off (and perhaps taking the nozzle with it, but that’s less clear). All that is clear is that SpaceX claims that the powerhead itself wasn’t damaged, because they continued to receive telemetry from it.
I should note that if this is the case, it eliminates any earlier concerns about the upper-stage engine causing a catastrophic failure, though questions remain about about why Orbcomm is in the wrong orbit. This is clearly a second-stage issue.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Here’s the current story from Joe Pappalardo at Popular Mechanics. I’ll probably be elaborating on it after getting more info from SpaceX.
More SpaceX Launch Problems
A BBC reporter is reporting that the Orbcomm was deployed into a wrong orbit, as a result of a failure of the upper stage to restart. More at New Space Watch. This is actually a more serious problem than the first-stage failure, from a business standpoint, since it was actually a mission failure for the secondary payload. Next question: is Dragon in an orbit that can still rendezvous with the ISS? How much propellant reserve do they have?
[Update a while later]
SpaceX is sticking by their story that the engine didn’t explode, and that it was a fairing rupture after a controlled shutdown (though there was no initial discussion of the fairing issue). I have no reason to doubt it.
The SpaceX Launch Anomaly
I just got back from dinner, but apparently people have begun discussing it in comments at this relatively unrelated thread.
I don’t know much about it, so all I’ll say is that if they had a first-stage engine problem, it proves out their design capability to have mission success with engine out.
Clark Lindsey has some notes from the post-launch press conference.
[Update a few minutes later]
I would go further, and state explicitly that this increases my confidence in their vehicle. It was an inadvertent flight test of a capability that they would hope they don’t have to use, but now know that it works.
[Update a few minutes later]
Never mind my first response to Paul Breed in comments. Apparently it wasn’t just an engine shutdown — a first-stage engine exploded.
That puts a different complexion on things.
Now the question is, what is different about that Merlin than the one on the second stage, other than nozzle size? Well, there’s the environment. It occurred during Max Q, so the second stage wouldn’t have to worry about that.
If it had happened on the second stage, would it have just resulted in a lost of thrust (that is, does the second stage have a similar shrapnel protector) or would the stage itself have exploded?
If the former, it would probably be survivable (that is, payload or crew recovered) without an abort system, though a mission failure, so a concern for payload customers. If the latter, it might have happened too quickly for an abort system to be activated. It all depends on how much warning they had that the engine was going south. But obviously this would be of concern for commercial crew. Of course, as discussed in comments, this engine version will be retired after the next flight, currently scheduled for January, so if that one goes all right (and they certainly won’t fly until they understand what happened to this one), it will have retired with a 98% demonstrated reliability, and the Merlin 1D will have a clean slate on the following flight.
[Monday morning update]
Charles Lurio notes in email that one difference besides nozzle size (and environment) between upper and lower stage engines is the lack of active cooling in the nozzle of the latter. This would only be significant if the failure was caused by a problem in one of the cooling channels.
Plasma Jet Electric Thrusters
An interesting Kickstarter project.
Via (former co-blogger) Andrew Case, who writes:
It will be interesting to see if crowd funding of space projects is viable. I know that there’s a guy who successfully funded a project to study a lunar space elevator, but as far as I know this is the first that is focused on something practical that has a real chance of flying in the short term.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.
I think it’s very viable, and a useful model for the future. It will be even better when we can start crowd funding actual businesses via the JOBS Act, and not just technology development.
[Late evening update]
Yeah, I know, I know. I was gone all day, and Trent provided it in comments, but here’s the link.
[Update a few minutes later]
Ignore my response to Paul Breed in comments. Doug Messier is now reporting that the engine exploded. If so, that puts a different complexion on things, but it still proves out their engine-out capability for the first stage, including shrapnel shield. The question is, as Paul notes, what are the differences between first and second-stage Merlins, if any, that can give us confidence in the second-stage reliability? Also, what would have happened to the Dragon had it happened on second stage? Just a loss of thrust, or an explosion of the entire stage (that is, would the explosion have taken out the tanks above as well, or does it have a similar shrapnel shield)?
In terms of commercial crew, the former wouldn’t necessarily require an abort system, and the latter probably wouldn’t be helped by one, unless there was sufficient warning to activate it. So it will be interesting to know from telemetry how soon they knew the engine was going south.