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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 18 2018, @01:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the will-there-be-a-kaboom? dept.

[Update 2: Successful mission! Successful separation, clean booster and escape capsule landing.

Mission launch time:  11:11AM EDT (15:11 UTC)
Max ascent velocity:  2,236 mph
max capsule apogee:   389,846ft (119km)
Mission elapsed time: 11m17s

Overheard on the live feed that max G forces for the escape capsule was: 10G.]

[Update 1: there was a brief hold of approximately 10 minutes; countdown has resumed.]

Watch Live: Blue Origin Subjects its Rocket to High-Altitude Escape Test:

As it continues to progress toward human flights, Blue Origin will perform another potentially dangerous, uncrewed test today of its New Shepard rocket and spacecraft. Although it has not yet provided details, the company says it will fly "a high altitude escape motor test—pushing the rocket to its limits." The test is scheduled to begin at 11 am EDT (15:00 UTC) [corrected times] at the company's West Texas launch site.

This is the ninth test of the reusable New Shepard system, and the third in which it has included commercial payloads on it short suborbital flights. This time, the company is also flying a suite of materials from Blue Origin employees as a part of its internal “Fly My Stuff” program. (It's unclear at this point exactly how "abort test" and "payload" fit together in the same mission—presumably the high altitude abort will be followed by the New Shepard spacecraft pressing to orbit, but we're not exactly sure. Blue Origin will have more details about exactly what's going on when its webcast starts.)

This is not the first high-energy test of New Shepard. In October, 2016, the company conducted a lower altitude in-flight escape test when engineers intentionally triggered the spacecraft's launch abort system at about 45 seconds after launch, and an altitude of 16,000 feet. Such systems are designed to fire quickly and separate the crew capsule from the booster during an emergency.

Live feed on YouTube should start approximately 20 minutes before the 11:00 EDT (15:00 UTC) launch.

Note: it appears the launch may have originally been scheduled at 14:00 UTC but now appears to be scheduled for 15:00 UTC.

See also: spaceflightnow and space.com (which still has the original launch time).


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  • (Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:12PM (2 children)

    by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:12PM (#709508) Journal

    Thanks for the reply, fellow gray(white?) beard!!

    So, that got me to looking at Blue origin [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia. From a quick read-through, I get the impression that they were content to do a lot of work without announcing all that they were doing. The company motto is Gradatim Ferociter, Latin for Step by Step, Ferociously. Maybe that is where I got my impression from? That, and by comparison, SpaceX seems to employ/espouse the "Fail fast, fail early" silicon valley approach. For a quick summary about that which references SpaceX, see this article on WaPo [washingtonpost.com], though I no doubt imagine you are already familiar with that concept! (That's just my being thorough, and I guess, not a strong adherent to that philosophy!)

    From the Wiki article, my sense is that BO had orbital aspirations from the outset, but just did not publicize them. I got the impression that things would not be announced until a few years' development had already taken place. Then again, BO is self-funded by Jeff Bezos who can afford to spend $1B/year from his own pocket. SpaceX needed a more, umm, flashy(?) approach to get backers, contracts, funding. As it was, SpaceX reached a point when one of its test flights, had it failed, would have meant the end of the company... Musk was already leveraged to the hilt and was just barely making payroll IIRC.

    In short, and like I stated at the outset, I have no hard data to support my thesis that BO employs a more gradual approach that involves more testing at each stage than SpaceX. Based on what I've seen from those two organizations, it just matches up with my experience at a number of companies over the years. I'd happily revise that should more/other data/information become available.

    Again, thanks for the discussion -- much appreciated!

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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:36PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:36PM (#709529) Journal

    Yeah, I had read about fail fast.

    It seems that SpaceX really did roll the dice. Maybe BO really is better funded and taking a more conservative approach -- and not getting to orbit, and a customer base as quickly as SpaceX. Maybe BO didn't see SpaceX coming.

    I would think that two years after BO was founded, seeing the founding of SpaceX might have lit a fire under them to accelerate their program somewhat.

    But whatever else is at work in both companies, we can only speculate.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:58PM

      by martyb (76) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 19 2018, @05:58PM (#709542) Journal

      Yep. At this point, I think we are generally in furious agreement =) Can't disagree with anything you wrote there.

      I watched the original space race unfold between the US and Russia... even got into model rocketry for a spell. Lusted to build a model rocket with an 'F' engine, but finances kept that in check. probably just as well because I grew up within a few miles of an airport. They tend to frown on things violating their airspace!

      Many thanks for the chat! May both companies have continued good luck and progress in their endeavors... Go Space!

      --
      Wit is intellect, dancing.