Snidely
2024-08-12 00:30:39 UTC
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Permalinkturbopumps on it's Rutherford engines used in Electron. Back on
September 18, 2023 Eectron's string of 20 consecutive successes ended
when the 2nd stage battery hotswap resulted in arcing rather than
running.
Beck's kids resumed launches on December 15 using a nitrogen gas
environment to suppress flashes on the hotswap. This was the 42nd
Electron launch.
See the nitrogen bottle at the topleft at
http://youtu.be/iLwTLqaCnQ8
and at about t=2500 you see the battery pack falling towards the
clouds.
Today was the 52nd launch, and the second with an upgraded battery
system. The mylar bag and nitrogen bottle are not visible in the
camera view, and a bare box is jettisoned successfully.
Launch 51:
for Synspective, a Japanese earth obs company.
Both the failed launch and today's launch were for SAR satellites
belonging to Capella Space. The return-to-flight launch was also a
SAR, for Japan's IQPS, and #51 was yet more SAR satellites.
[I remember when SAR filled the shuttle payload bay, definitely not a
small-sat technology then.]
/dps
--
We’ve learned way more than we wanted to know about the early history
of American professional basketball, like that you could have once
watched a game between teams named the Indianapolis Kautskys and the
Akron Firestone Non-Skids. -- fivethirtyeight.com
We’ve learned way more than we wanted to know about the early history
of American professional basketball, like that you could have once
watched a game between teams named the Indianapolis Kautskys and the
Akron Firestone Non-Skids. -- fivethirtyeight.com