I wouldn’t bet on it. The weather at the Cape isn’t looking much better than it has been for the last few nights, including Friday night, when lightning strikes on the launch site caused a scrub for Saturday night. When the Air Force and NASA were choosing launch sites in the late fifties and early sixties, the Cape was an attractive location for many reasons, but one of the negatives was the fact that Florida is pretty much the lightning capital of the nation. More people are killed by strikes here than anywhere else (it helps to have a large population, of course). But at the time, it wasn’t truly appreciated what a problem this would be. The first major lightning issue occurred on Apollo XII (next flight after the one whose fortieth anniversary we’ll be celebrating, or at least remembering over the next few days), when lightning struck the vehicle during launch, and basically dazed the avionics. The crew had the presence of mind to do a reboot, and the mission ended up being a success.
The next major event was almost twenty years later, in the spring of 1987 (not long after the Challenger loss, and the Titan IV failure at Vandenberg that caused both systems to be shut down for some time). An Atlas-Centaur carrying a Navy comsat was destroyed by lightning that caused its control system to go haywire right after launch. The current commit criteria that kept the Shuttle from launching last night, and may do so again tonight, were derived from those events. If anyone is interested in the details, there’s an interesting paper on the subject from the Aerospace Corporation.
What I found interesting is the fact that the vehicles themselves induce the lightning. I think that this speaks to the utility of a two-stage vehicle without a long rocket exhaust plume that contacts the ground providing a conductive path. This wouldn’t be a problem for an air-launched system that could ferry. And of course, such a system wouldn’t be tied to a fixed launch site, like Cape Canaveral. As we remember Apollo, people in Brevard Country should understand and be proud that while their region played a key role in space history, and may have helped win the Cold War, geography will not always be destiny.
[Update about 8 PM eastern]
Did I call it or what?
Spacelaunch Falcon 1 attempt has been put off until 10:30 EDT.
Very interesting. Although I am looking forward to the SpaceX launch more, the shuttle is carrying a Texas A&M satellite. It will supposedly tweet its status during the mission. http://twitter.com/AggieSat2
Geography may not always be destiny, but a large number of electoral votes and seniority in the Senate might.
Geography may not always be destiny, but a large number of electoral votes and seniority in the Senate might.
That won’t help, when it’s private space transports, with private payloads.
Unless the country descends much further into fascism than even I fear.
Cocoa and Cape Canaveral are getting slammed, judging by radar. Also storms north around Oak Hill. But Pad 39A? It’s looking good, as is the SLF.
I read this and thought, “but the weather is fine!” And then I remembered — “hey wait a minute, I don’t live in Florida anymore — I’m in Virginia!” It’s a nice day here.
The crew had the presence of mind to do a reboot, and the mission ended up being a success.
Actually it was a flight controller, John Aaron, who had the presence of mind to suggest switching the “SCE to AUX”, which fixed the problem and made him a hero among his colleagues. Google for “SCE to AUX” to find out more about this amazing story.
Looked at National Radar, almost everywhere along the southern east coast and gulf, storms are proping up. Seems to be something to late afternoon heat and humid areas…
From wikipedia:
When Apollo 12 launched on November 14, 1969, John Aaron was on shift. Thirty-six seconds after liftoff, the spacecraft was struck by lightning, causing a power surge. Instruments began to malfunction, communications dropped out, and telemetry data became nonsensical. The flight director, Gerry Griffin, expected that he would have to abort the mission. However, Aaron realized that he had seen this odd pattern of telemetry before.
A year before the flight, Aaron had been observing a test at Kennedy Space Center when he had noticed some unusual telemetry readings. On his own initiative, he traced this anomaly back to the obscure Signal Conditioning Equipment (SCE) system, and became one of the few flight controllers who was familiar with the system and its operations. In the case that first drew his attention to the system, normal readings could have been restored by putting the SCE on its auxiliary setting, which meant that it would run even under low-voltage conditions.
Aaron surmised that this setting would also return the Apollo 12 telemetry to normal. When he made the recommendation, “Flight, try SCE to ‘Aux'”, most of his mission control colleagues had no idea what he was talking about. Both the flight director and the CapCom asked him to repeat the recommendation. Pete Conrad’s response to the order was, “What the hell is that?” Fortunately Alan Bean was familiar with the location of the SCE switch inside the capsule, and flipped it to auxiliary. Telemetry was immediately restored, allowing the mission to continue. This call earned Aaron the lasting respect of his colleagues, who declared that he was a “steely-eyed missile man”.
IE John Aaron and SCE to AUX. And if I recall Alan Bean was the only Apollo XXII crewman who had any idea what the SCE to AUX switch was. But that was probably due to it being on his side of the panel.
Guys, I didn’t say flight crew… 😉
Rand,
My comment had more to do with the citizenry of Brevard County, especially the federal employees and contracted support of said employees.
Oh and Al Bean was crew on Apollo XII, not Apollo “XXII”!
(fat fingers)
I’m starting to think I’m jinxing this mission. This is the first launch I’ve had the opportunity to see in HD (which is as close as I’m going to get to seeing it in person, sadly), but every chance has been scrubbed so far…
I seem to recall the worst area for lightning in Florida being a band stretching from Tampa to the Cape.
Speaking of space history, one disappointment for me is that Florida hasn’t tried harder to be a major player in commercial space. It may very well come out on top, anyway, due to the existing government operations at the Cape, but things are happening elsewhere, too. On the other hand, diversity in launch operations is almost certainly a good thing, and when commercial space does take off, it’ll likely happen in multiple locations–for launch services, manufacture, training, etc.
Although I think Elon Musk is a bit of a jerk for suggesting that gas should go up to $10 gallon and his idiotic “I’m anti-tax, but I’m pro-carbon tax” statement, but I still wish SpaceX a terrific flight today.
I hope they make it.
Of course he suggests gas should go up to $10 a gallon. He owns an electric car company. If he owned a gas car company, he would be singing a different tune. From the looks of it he can play the political game pretty well. Remember the time he brought a Falcon 1 prototype to Washington to schmooze the politicos?
Aw hell, did Musk really say that? That’s disappointing.
Yeah, it is disappointing. You can read the interview here. He’s rich and obviously forgets what it’s like to be a working stiff.
“This wouldn’t be a problem for an air-launched system that could ferry. And of course, such a system wouldn’t be tied to a fixed launch site, like Cape Canaveral.”
Rand, yesterday you mentioned your distaste for hypersonics (which at the time I assumed didn’t include air-launched rockets like you mentioned in the quote above) – where would you rate an air-launch system like the Scaled family, in terms of desirability? Leaving aside weather considerations, as I think you answered that too. But overall – is it a system you think would be superior to fixed pads, inferior to them, or indifferent?
(Thanks in advance)
I think that air launch has its place, for reasons of geographical flexibility, which also provides wide-open launch windows.
> He’s [Musk] rich and obviously forgets what it’s like to be a working stiff.
I don’t think he thinks through some things. His tesla likely will cost over – maybe a lot over, $1.50 a mile – but he seems to think he’s starting a transport revolution.
The Falcon 1 & 9 aren’t real technical innovators, nor designed for greater safety or reliability, nor a RLV config. But he talks about them being the foundation of a major large-scale push into space – still talking about maybe sending people to Mars by 2020.
He talks about colonizing Mars as being a commercial proposition since rich folks will sign up to spend all their fortunes for one way trips to Mars to spend their lives as colonists.
???
Liquid chemical fuels for cars won’t go to $10/gallon (in constant dollars). One could make synthetic hydrocarbons from electrolytic hydrogen and atmospheric CO2 for less than that. The Navy is already pushing for small scale FT reactors to do just this, to make jet fuel on nuclear carriers.