Ares 1X launch Oct 27th

[CalliArcale]

DONE!!!!

The short flight is over. Now they're working on recovery of the first stage. Waiting for confirmation of first stage splashdown. Flight looked great, though, and it was neat watching the stage separation followed by tumbling of both first stage and dummy upper stage. Kinda reminded me of a model rocket launch, where the top of the model pops off so the parachute can come out. ;-)

robotical: yes, designated altitude was acheived, as far as I could tell. (They gave altitude at burnout, anyway, and that was nominal. Final altitude would be higher.)

thermionic: I think that was deliberate; on the audio, they mentioned firing of a thruster to start it tumbling. That would've been to prevent it impacting the first stage, which they want to be able to recover intact.

 

[MeteorWayne]

It was at 21.8 miles at SRB burnout and still rising, so it came close for sure. I assume it will take a while to confirm anything. I'll have to check and see when the post launch new conference is scheduled. Crrently shows as TBD...it's usually about 2 hours after launch, so I'd suspect around 1:30 PM EDT.

Will post updates as they come in.

 

[crazyeddie]

Does anyone know of any launch replay links for those of us who missed it?

 

[jakethesnake]

Still waiting to see if the SRB parachute deployed…

 

[docm]

Does anyone know of any launch replay links for those of us who missed it?

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html#

NASA needs to get refunds on those vehicle camera transmitters

 

[MeteorWayne]

It's not the transitters, it's the comm link, which includes alignment, atmospheric conidtion, etc.

I think the addition of the vehicle cameras has been one of the great innovations of the last decade for everyone who launches.

 

[chebby]

Nice launch! Good job, Nasa.

It looked like a pretty massive sonic wave/boom on 37th second of the flight around the thicker part of the rocket, looked cool. Hope it's designed to deal with stress like this.

 

[Boris_Badenov]

I didn't see any evidence of the shaking in the video. Should we have?

 

[zarniwoop]

to expensive ...scrap it...spend money on something that will work.....liquid propulsion rockets thing of the past...about time nasa woke up and started getting real.

 

[trailrider]

Technical question: Did the 1st stage separate at the same separation ring used on Shuttle SRB's, or above the dummy 5th segment? Was the parachute system the same as used on Shuttle SRB's, or modified? I noted that they separated the nozzle to decrease the velocity at water impact. Was this so they could keep the dummy 5th segment and still maintain the weight of the booster? (Used to work on the Shuttle SRB Decelerator Subsystem (parachutes)).

 

[RocketTony]

to expensive ...scrap it...spend money on something that will work.....liquid propulsion rockets thing of the past...about time nasa woke up and started getting real.

Did I read you correctly, that liquid propulsion rockets are a thing of the past? Besides, this rocket's main propulsion was solid...

 

[CalliArcale]

Does anyone know of any launch replay links for those of us who missed it?

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html#

Also their YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision

 

[crazyeddie]

Thanks for the links, folks. Did anyone get the impression the rocket sort of wobbled or leaned to one side as it left the launch pad? It straightened up, but for a second I thought it was gonna tip over!

 

[Smersh]

Glad to see the launch was successful.

I'm a little confused though. When the shuttle was introduced, it was hailed as a reuseable spacecraft and advance in technology from the all the previous expendable rockets that had been used. NASA now seem to be back using expendable rockets (although I believe the first stage is reuseable, but this is nothing like the shuttle, in which the whole of the main body of the spacecraft is reuseable.)

Isn't this a step in the wrong direction?

 

[newsartist]

Technical question: Did the 1st stage separate at the same separation ring used on Shuttle SRB's, or above the dummy 5th segment?

It is my understanding, (and certainly not the last word on the subject,) that the initial break happens at the top of the Frustrum that transitions to the larger upper stage.

Then that is jettisoned to expose the parachute mortars.

The tumble is said to be to prevent fouling of the chutes in the chance that it dives straight like an arrow descent,

 

[Zipi]

I'm a little confused though. When the shuttle was introduced, it was hailed as a reuseable spacecraft and advance in technology from the all the previous expendable rockets that had been used. NASA now seem to be back using expendable rockets (although I believe the first stage is reuseable, but this is nothing like the shuttle, in which the whole of the main body of the spacecraft is reuseable.)

Isn't this a step in the wrong direction?

Orion crew module is reusable. It will be used ten times until it is being scrapped. So in this sence Ares 1 / Orion probably have higher percentage of reusable mass than the space shuttle... More from Wikipedia.

 

[Smersh]

Thanks Zipi - I hadn't noticed that. A little better than I thought then.

 

[MarkStanaway]

Wow that was a great flight!
Well done NASA.
Unfortunately I missed the live feed as I could not quite beat the sandman after staying up half the previous night to watch a series of postponements. Those long periods of silence on the NASA channel made me wonder at times if my computer had frozen up! As it was I see they barely made it within the launch window (11:30)
Tha pitch over move to clear the tower was really quite noticeable. Also there was no uncontrollable roll as a previous poster had suggested. The UTube video cuts out just at separation in time to see the wild tumbling of the upper stage.

 

[trailrider]

Technical question: Did the 1st stage separate at the same separation ring used on Shuttle SRB's, or above the dummy 5th segment?

It is my understanding, (and certainly not the last word on the subject,) that the initial break happens at the top of the Frustrum that transitions to the larger upper stage.

Then that is jettisoned to expose the parachute mortars.

The tumble is said to be to prevent fouling of the chutes in the chance that it dives straight like an arrow descent,

Thanks. I would guess that would be the correct sequence on the full-up Ares I, but the 5-segment 1st stage will use three (3) 150 ft. (?) diameter main parachutes, rather than the Shuttle SRB 136 ft. dia. mains. Did the A-1X use the new mains or the Shuttle booster main chutes? If the former, I'd be interested in the performance. If they used the 136 ft. mains, they would have had to cut the weight back to something approaching the Shuttle SRB's. I understand they jettisoned the nozzle. I don't know whether the current Shuttle boosters do that or not. (They didn't when I was on the program, but that was 20 years ago! )

You mention "chute morters". That must be something new, as the original SRB-Decelerator Subsystem used the drogue chute to pull the frustum off the front end of the booster, and that acted like a deployment bag, deploying the main chutes in a double-reefed configuration at about 10,000 ft. Double-redundent guillotine reefing line cutters disreefed the canopies in two stages, to prevent damage to the main canopies. The drogue chute lowers the frustum to the water for recovery. I understand that "Freedom Star" was supposed to recover the booster, with "Liberty Star" to do other tasks (drogue & frustum perhaps?).

While I am not at all in favor of the Ares I concept (don't like solids for "high value" payloads, including humans), I congradulate the Ares 1-X team on a successful flight.

Ad LEO! Ad Luna! Ad Ares! Ad Astra!

 

[bluegrassgazer]

Thanks for the links, folks. Did anyone get the impression the rocket sort of wobbled or leaned to one side as it left the launch pad? It straightened up, but for a second I thought it was gonna tip over!

I noticed that too, but I guess it was part of the design to keep it away from the tower.
One other thing I noticed is this rocket left the pad in a hurry! It seemed noticeably faster at liftoff than the heavy shuttle.

 

[docm]

Fast it was, but that tipover made me a little nervous too. Not sure I'd like to be on top of that thing when it happens.

 

[hewes]

I'm sold. Build that sucker and strap me in!

 

[Zipi]

I would guess that would be the correct sequence on the full-up Ares I, but the 5-segment 1st stage will use three (3) 150 ft. (?) diameter main parachutes, rather than the Shuttle SRB 136 ft. dia. mains. Did the A-1X use the new mains or the Shuttle booster main chutes?

They used Ares 1 chutes, which by the way are the one of most ready parts of Ares 1 rocket.

You mention "chute morters". That must be something new, as the original SRB-Decelerator Subsystem used the drogue chute to pull the frustum off the front end of the booster, and that acted like a deployment bag, deploying the main chutes in a double-reefed configuration at about 10,000 ft. Double-redundent guillotine reefing line cutters disreefed the canopies in two stages, to prevent damage to the main canopies. The drogue chute lowers the frustum to the water for recovery.

Ares 1 chutes have drogue chute. I as well haven't heard anything of "chute morters". More information of Ares 1-X from Wikipedia (they have quite good structural information): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ares_I-X

 

[job1207]

Well, I would like to hear that payload would have survived a launch. Especially human payload. That was the main issue with using solid rocket boosters.

Next I would like to know why they have to fire five years of rockets before they put a person on it. Seriously, they have been firing the first stage for 20 years, more or less.

Thirdly, I would hope that the second stage was supposed to behave like that. I will defer to the experts on that one as always.

 

[Zipi]

Thirdly, I would hope that the second stage was supposed to behave like that. I will defer to the experts on that one as always.

NASA guys said at press conference that second stage behauviour was not expected and they have to study it more. They even couldn't say for sure did those stages touch each other or not. For me it seems that the stages touched each other.

Live launch video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeIjVB2O9_4[/youtube]

Replays, part 1/4: (after 5min really good footage of separation)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZJdDpZwQQ[/youtube]

Replays, part 2/4:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lgaW4piSus[/youtube]

Replays, part 3/4: (starts with vehicle cam2, which includes sound!)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP_YDKaBhQ8[/youtube]

Replays, part 4/4:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0pM5s3wZ2A[/youtube]

My screen capture from the pad avoidance: (does anyone think it was close to hit the tower?)

Youtube link to this camera just before launch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFZJdDpZwQQ#t=7m58s