In more good news for Boeing, the CFT launch date was updated to TBD. (Will be scheduled sometime after the Axiom 2 mission private astronaut mission to ISS scheduled for early May.)

They found people to brave it huh? I'd get on a dragon no problem, maybe a soyuz, but bot that thing...

I'd do it.

Ag_of_08 said:

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They found people to brave it huh? I'd get on a dragon no problem, maybe a soyuz, but bot that thing...

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I would ride a Soyuz before either of the other two. It's not better than the Dragon but being a tall skinny capsule, it is inherently stabile during reentry.

10 years ago I'd agree. Too many malfunctions and leaks recently for me to be as confident at this point.

NASAg03 said:

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Any inside info or thoughts on Stoke Space?

Wet dress rehearsal complete. ✔️ #hopper pic.twitter.com/ePke5cMH74

— Stoke Space (@stoke_space) March 18, 2023

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From what I've seen, they've been moving insanely fast from basically nothing to full scale test rig. I'm very impressed with their speed of execution. They are a good LinkedIn follow because they post a lot of updates, that's where I've gotten my information on them. I don't have any deeper insights, the founder is former Blue Origin.

The arrangement of nozzles around the perimeter of the second stage is effectively a large aerospike. There are some challenges feeding multiple chambers from one pump, and they have a lot being fed from a single pump. I heard that ABL explored a similar architecture very early on for their first stage and abandoned it opting for one pump per thrust chamber which is the traditional approach. Now maybe it's easier on the second stage where the total thrust requirements are a lot lower.

They may set a record for number of holds before it inevitably takes off and explodes.

And it's off

I randomly turned in with 39 seconds left in the countdown. Took off nicely. Though it looks like the second stage didn't fire off.

That was cool. Very pretty blue plume.

Yeah. They had something go wrong on S2. It looks like it tried to fire but didn't. It popped and looked like it was gimballing. And then the feed cut off.

3D printing is so damn cool.

Rewatching it my guess is that they melted part of their injector which lead to a complete flame out or an extremely off nominal Fuel/Ox ratio. You see the flame go bright orange and start sputtering. It looks like the turbo pumps were going strong the whole time.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

That was kind of funny. Here are the 'excitable' ladies:

Hear hear! They were fantastic. Hopefully we have officially left behind boring, stiff, talking heads for launch webcasts and are leaning hard into putting the people close to the product at the desk! Very well done. https://t.co/jzMnD0WtAm

— Lauren Lyons (@Laur_Ly) March 23, 2023

NSF link.

Quote:

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Terran 1's second stage was to coast for six seconds after separation before igniting its single Aeon Vac engine at two minutes and 51 seconds mission elapsed time. However, despite visual indications that the engine was attempting to ignite, no amount of useful thrust was produced and the anomaly ended the mission.

Terran R

While Relativity was preparing for its first launch with Terran 1, the company was also already making progress on its much larger next-generation launch vehicle: Terran R. This is expected to be a fully-reusable launch system with an anticipated payload capacity of 20,000 kg to LEO.

Like Terran 1, Terran R will be a two-stage rocket, which will be almost entirely 3D-printed and use the same propellant combination of liquid methane and liquid oxygen. It will fly with seven Aeon R engines powering its first stage, with a single vacuum-optimized Aeon R on its second stage.

Using lessons learned from the development of Terran 1, as well as from the GLHF mission, Terran R's first launch is currently slated to occur no earlier than 2024. While this goal may be optimistic, Relativity has seemingly been making rapid progress on the engine that will power its next-generation launcher.

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What parts of their rocket are 3D printed?

YellowPot_97 said:

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What parts of their rocket are 3D printed?

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85% of the dry mass.

Man that thing jumped off the launch platform. Looked like all the boosters lit up at the same time.

Also, that one announcer reading off the milestones sounds like a robot from a 1960s Buck Rogers serial.

The first few minutes of launch is all done with the solid rocket boosters. IIRC their main liquid fuel engines aren't very efficient at low altitude. The central engines don't light until about 10 seconds before the boosters are jettisoned. Really cool to see it just jump off the pad like that.

This particular design is going to be the one launching astronauts within the next few years.

Cool launch.

You knowntheyve been working the program, and test flew the boiler plate not long ago right? Their manned pr9gram has a pretty interesting history to this point

Bregxit said:

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Ag_of_08 said:

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You knowntheyve been working the program, and test flew the boiler plate not long ago right? Their manned pr9gram has a pretty interesting history to this point

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When I see "astronaut" I think Americans. Regardless, a human would have to be insane to trust their life on an Indian rocket.

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Reincarnation and karma are central tenants of Hinduism, so not as risky as you'd think for practitioners of the predominant persuasion.

So, they've fully stacked B10,



But Zack is a bit skeptical/pessimistic in his latest:

Any guesses when Relativity will be back on the launch pad for try number 2?

Seems these things take a few months to go through the bureaucratic regulatory review.

Sea level engines run perfect. Then vacuum engine of the same design lites for an instant but goes out with the occasional sputtering of flames. Doesn't look trivial.

Why? They have a pretty good track record from memory, aside from the SSLV failure

Their launch tower quite fittingly looks like a Shiva statue

Changing subjects:

I read this article years ago but thought about it again recently. A fascinating and kind of sad look into whether the Columbia crew could have been saved.


https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/

I can't see NASA risking another shuttle and another crew that would be susceptible to the exact same design flaw as Columbia without taking time to reduce the risk of falling debris as much as possible.

That would take time.

If Columbia wasn't going to reenter they would have had enough fuel I think to change their orbit plane and make it to the ISS which would have bought them more time.