Folks,
At 9:15 eastern, this test is live from White Sands, New Mexico.
Enjoy!
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 43 Comments
This post is in: Space
Folks,
At 9:15 eastern, this test is live from White Sands, New Mexico.
Enjoy!
Comments are closed.
Mike J
I’ll bet it has three independent attitude sensors.
Citizen_X
Good job, Boeing! Congrats.
Alain
Was a pretty cool test, even with one main chute failure. Quite an exciting launch to 650 mph almost instantly and the crazed veer to clear away from the pad. With the cloud of red dust rising from the dropped heat shield and the pulsing cloud of red dust-tinged exhaust from the service module looked like Mars. Quite well done, Boeing and NASA!
Ella in New Mexico
Very proud to say Hubby has been literally burning the night oil for the last couple of weeks in prep to support this mission. He and his team of Federal Employees (Radar specialists) have been working so hard to make sure their end was flawless, and it was. Of course. ;-)
#justbragginabit
The Moar You Know
@Alain: That’s the smoke you get when you have incomplete combustion of dinitrogen tetroxide and UDMH or similar fuel (hypergolic rocket fuel) and it’s pretty hazardous.
OldDave
Was the red from dust or hypergolic fuels? Don’t want to get near the latter …
ETA: The Moar answered my question.
West of the Rockies
@Ella in New Mexico:
It takes a big-ass village to raise a lander!
Cermet
Just wow and not fully in a good way; after extensive testing and super careful rechecking a chute failed in the test?! Yes, two are enough but that really surprises me that one would then fail considering the far greater care this capsule would undergo compared to a routine mission. But then, this was certainly a successful test in that a failure mode has been discovered and somehow was overlooked. That discovery, most certainly, is a good thing to find out now.
Alain
@The Moar You Know: gotcha. Thanks for the correction!
Still a good way to start the day and week!
Alain
@Ella in New Mexico: it’s so nice to hear that a reader’s family was involved!
Ella in New Mexico
@West of the Rockies: If everyone fully realized all the nameless, faceless everyday “average” folks out there who are REALLY making America great we’d breathe a collective sigh of relief and gratitude.
Ella in New Mexico
@Alain: Our small corner of the planet occasionally get’s a some attention and it never fails to make us proud. He’s been at WSMR since 1988 and we’ve seen a lot of cool stuff happen but rarely does it get front page billing–especially on BJ! Thanks for being the first FPr to do it!! :-)
rikyrah
Yes ? ? ? ?
Breaking via CNBC: A federal appeals court has ruled that Trump’s tax returns must be turned over to a state grand jury.
The panel rejected Trump’s argument that he’s immune as president from criminal investigation while in the White House. https://t.co/nH2bYKYjkY
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 4, 2019
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: Heh heh heh – where’s Yarrow? Can we get a “tick tock, motherfuckers” over here?
Mary G
@Ella in New Mexico: Congratulations and thanks to Mr. Ella for 30+ years helping NASA.
@rikyrah: I am encouraged that Twitler’s lawyers were given a set short time to appeal to the Supremes. You know he wants to stall. Now we get to see how corrupt Roberts is.
West of the Rockies
@Ella in New Mexico:
Just so. When Obama said, “You didn’t build that…”, all the wingers lost their wee little minds. He knew that although individual grit and fortitude and effort are necessary to achieve something, we also all take advantage of existing platforms and infrastructure.
We raise our children and hope the world will be kind to them. We try to build in them resilience and determination because we know the world will not always be kind to them.
We build and rise and grow collectively. Some people refuse to see that.
Martin
@Ella in New Mexico: Thanks to NASA for forcing Boeing to stream it. Its always good to see how our tax dollars are being used. Glad they had a successful test.
Looking forward to the test flights.
Martin
Oh, shit, it wasn’t a successful test. One of the parachutes didn’t deploy. Good to see it can work even with that failure, but NASA won’t be happy. Parachutes are fucking hard to do – especially multiple chutes being deployed in this manner. I think NASA may revisit SpaceXs propulsive landing sooner rather than later.
Jamey
Launch aborts should be safe, legal and rare.
Mary G
First two transcripts of impeachment testimony released. Adam Schiff is a master strategist.
chopper
@rikyrah:
oh man shithead’s twitter is gonna be LIT
Keith P.
@rikyrah: so Trump is going to appeal to SCOTUS because he thinks they rule based solely on partisan leanings, but what does SCOTUS *have* to take up the case, or can they just refuse to hear it, leaving the appeals court decision intact?
The Moar You Know
@Keith P.: The vast majority of what gets tossed the way of the Supremes gets tossed, leaving the lower court ruling intact. I doubt they want to rule on this one. Roberts does not want to be “that guy” that made presidents unaccountable dictators.
Martin
@Keith P.: They can refuse to hear it. Usually that would signal a 9-0 vote or thereabouts, basically ‘the result of this is sufficiently obvious that we don’t need to waste everyones time’.
This is different, though. The worst outcome would be USSC taking the case and then ruling in a 5-4 partisan or nearly partisan split. That would settle the issue legally, but not establish any durable precedent regarding the presidents immunity. Roberts is going to have his hands full with this one. If he thinks it’s an overwhelming outcome, he should take the case and settle the matter. If he thinks it’s close, duck the matter. He doesn’t want a Bush v Gore on his record which settled nothing legally but made it clear that the court really is partisan.
joel hanes
@Martin: Roberts … doesn’t want a Bush v Gore on his record
With respect, with Citizens United, Shelby County, and Rucho on his record, a Bush v Gore equivalent would barely move the needle. Roberts is a pure partisan actor.
Redshift
@Ella in New Mexico: Very cool!
Just Chuck
@Keith P.: SCOTUS could let the circuit court’s ruling stand, and given how preposterous the immunity argument is, not touching it could be the smartest thing the partisans could do. Then again given the profile of the case, they may want to put their imprimatur on it just to put the matter to bed. Which will be really bad news for Trump; I can see Thomas voting his way since his entire legal philosophy is “fuck you libs”, but even those justices who owe their jobs to Trump aren’t likely willing to slather the legacy of SCOTUS with this weak sauce.
Martin
There’s a rumor about that the pullout of Syria was because Turkey intercepted a call between Kushner and MBS where Kushner gave the go ahead to arrest Khashoggi, and used it as leverage against Trump. Further, the rumor is that Schiffs committee knows about this from the testimony of one of the people they brought in for dispositions.
Seems a bit too convenient to me, but Trumps Razor, and all that.
Michael Allen
Dan Hewitt: Please shave that gross beard off.
Gravenstone
@Alain: That’s likely not red dust. That’s probably nitrogen dioxide/dinitrogen tetroxide (the liquid dimeric form). It’s used as an oxidizer in hypergolic rocket fuel systems. Toxic as hell
eta: and I see I’m late as hell, but I recognize the characteristic color
Martin
@joel hanes: This is bigger than those, to be honest. It’s not about partisanship so much as who gets to choose our leaders and to whom are the accountable. Bush v Gore is what put Democrats on their current voter rights trajectory arguing that the people and not courts should choose our leaders. This case could establish that the President really is above the law. That’s a very, very dangerous thing.
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
IIRC, though, it only takes 4 justices to agree to hear a case. Even if Roberts would really rather avoid it he needs to convince at least one other conservative justice to successfully dodge it.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
They need to move heaven and earth to get the contents of that ultra-secret server. It probably contains at least a dozen impeachments worth of dirt.
ETA: Though I’m waiting to hear that the hard drive failed and there’s no backup.
rikyrah
@Keith P.:
a garbage case based on garbage reasoning. they shouldn’t even take it up.
Baud
@Mike J:
Good, bad, and sassy.
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
ICAM!
Martin
@Gravenstone: Yeah, that’s definitely hydrazine.
What Gravenstone is describing is how some self-contained rocket motors and attitude control systems work. A rocket differs from a jet in that a jet uses air from the atmosphere to sustain a combustion, but a rocket carries its own air (oxidizer). In many large rockets that’s liquid oxygen. In small rockets it’s often hydrazine. When you mix hydrazine with certain fuels, it reacts *very* energetically. No need to light a match or anything like that. Just put them together and ‘boom’. Put that behind a nozzle and you have a rocket. Simple, compact, reliable. Like vinegar in baking soda times a billion.
It’s a carcinogen, but really, that’s the least of your problems. It reacts with skin contact. Nausea, seizures, coma, organ failure.
It was prominent in SpaceXs capsule failure video. That failure is attributed to a valve failure that allowed hydrazine into a system it wasn’t supposed to be in. Its dangerous because it reacts extremely energetically with no external trigger/catalyst. Just put them together and off you go, ready or not.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
FWIW, this is backward. Hydrazine (and hydrazine derivatives, like UDMH) is the fuel and the substance it’s mixed with (often dinitrogen tetroxide) is the oxidizer.
rikyrah
Fate of Trump’s abettors may not be aligned with impeachment
Rachel Maddow looks at new reporting that Trump counselor John Eisenberg sought to hide the record of Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Zelensky on a secret server upon learning that Trump’s conduct was improper, and talks with Michael Beschloss, NBC News presidential historian, about what happens to the peripheral players who help commit or cover up a president’s wrongdoing.
Nov. 1, 2019
Martin
@Roger Moore: It’s a test of Roberts control of the court. Marshall famously worked with his court to ensure a 9-0 ruling on Brown, because he understood the implications of a unanimous vs split decision. This is a similar test, and one he should have a handle on before the decision whether to take the case or not.
I’m not terribly optimistic he won’t fuck it up.
Jay
Jay
Jay