History in the making: Ares I-X | The Coffeehouse

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Currently it looks like we're about 10 minutes away from the launch of Ares I-X, the first test launch of the Ares rocket that will carry men back to the moon and then hopefully on to Mars. Watch it live on NASA TV.

EDIT: Apparently there is a ship in the launch danger area, to it looks they're going to delay at least 90 minutes. Sad

EDIT2: Ok, looks like they got the ship out of the way and are resuming the countdown soon.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Countdown has resumed at T-4 minutes. In the words of Alan Shepard, let's light this candle. Smiley

EDIT: And they reset the clock and are holding again... dammit.

Harlequin
http://twitter.com/TrueHarlequin

In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 27th @ 6:46 AM

*Harlequin laughs as he keeps hitting the LAUCNH RESET button*

jjesse

In reply to Harlequin

#Oct 27th @ 7:07 AM

how come i keep seeing the windows 7 startup screen? are they rebooting the computers to get this working?

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

It's mostly the weather that's the problem, quite frankly it seems unlikely they're going to launch today.

Harlequin
http://twitter.com/TrueHarlequin

In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 27th @ 7:46 AM

Of course reading this thread makes me sad Defying Gravity is done for the season. Boys liked watching the stuff the last couple of episodes, showed them what Venus was like. Smiley

Dr Herbie
Horses for courses

In reply to Harlequin

#Oct 27th @ 7:49 AM

Well, we're only just started with Defying Gravtiy over here in the UK. Got the first two episodes back-to-back last week and episode three on Thursday. Big Smile

Herbie

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Well, they've just officially scrubbed the launch due to weather. They're going to discuss when they'll try again.

stevo_
Human after all

In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 27th @ 8:21 AM

Phht, bit of rain never hurt anyone Tongue Out

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

In reply to stevo_

#Oct 27th @ 8:22 AM

It wasn't raining. The issues were with cloud electrification (which is apparently a new rule) and ground wind speeds.

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In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 27th @ 8:29 AM

The triboelectrification (production of electrostatic charges through friction) rule isn't new, but the Space Shuttle and most other modern expendable launch vehicles aren't vulnerable to it.

figuerres
???

In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 27th @ 8:29 AM

I am in Tampa which is on the west coast of FL. Weather In FL can be crazy nuts at times. we get a lot of lightning, thunder storms and tornado forming conditions off and on all thru the summer.

we have a saying: drive 10 miles or wait 10 minutes and the weather will be completely different.

and some times it's really just that drastic!

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

In reply to CannotResolveSymbol

#Oct 27th @ 8:52 AM

I've read that they were worried it would interfere with communications, so if something went wrong and they would have to remotely destroy the rocket they wouldn't be able to. I assume that this wouldn't be as much of a concern in later launches when the rocket is tested (and especially not when it is manned), though I could be wrong about that.

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In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 27th @ 9:47 AM

Yes, that's the reason for the constraint.

This will still be a concern for later launches (manned and unmanned)-- destroying the rocket is always a last-resort option that they must keep open, as something could go wrong in any launch attempt (take the Challenger disaster, for example-- the SRBs actually survived the breakup of the vehicle, and were detonated remotely after they went out of control).

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

In reply to CannotResolveSymbol

#Oct 27th @ 10:16 AM

Then I am confused as to why the Space Shuttle isn't vulnerable to this. Why doesn't triboelectrification cause the same problems for it?

Also, if they know how to build a vehicle that isn't affected by this, why didn't they do it this time?

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In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 27th @ 10:34 AM

I'm just going by what they said on nasaspaceflight.com... they don't explain why the shuttle isn't susceptible to it (they say other launch vehicles are coated to protect against it-- I'd suspect they didn't do this for the Ares I-X for budget reasons). I'd guess it has something to do with the shape of the shuttle, but I'm not an aeronautical engineer-- this would be a better question to ask on the forums at nasaspaceflight.com.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

Lift-off of Ares I-X! Big Smile

And apparently successful splashdown. Pretty impressive, a first test flight of a brand new rocket and the only thing that delayed them was the weather.

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In reply to Sven Groot

#Oct 28th @ 8:34 AM

Dang it, I missed it... completely slipped my mind this morning. I wanted to watch it... Sad