Rocket Launch notification thread

[annodomini2]

Ok 'Forced' then.

[Eric Mc]

The Air Force specified the cross range requirement (which NASA had no need of). The wings were the solution to the Air Forces requirements - even though the Air Force themselves were not themselves insistent on wings.

[Efbe]

Eric Mc said:

The Air Force specified the cross range requirement (which NASA had no need of). The wings were the solution to the Air Forces requirements - even though the Air Force themselves were not themselves insistent on wings.

out of interest, why did the air force want that?

[MartG]

ESA experimental spaceplane due to launch on Wednesday - will be shown live ( link in article below )

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/IXV_m...

[Eric Mc]

This looks interesting. Dyna Soar finally gets to fly? Or perhaps this is the Shuttle shape NASA should have insisted on back in 1972.

[Eric Mc]

Efbe said:

out of interest, why did the air force want that?

The Air Force wanted the Shuttle to have a "one orbit" capability flight on launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base. These launches would put the Shuttle into a polar orbit and would enable the Air Force to fly "one off" orbit of the earth recce missions and then land straight away. They kind of wanted to use the Shuttle as a "super-duper" SR-71.

The problem with polar orbits is that the earth rotates under the orbiting spacecraft. When the Shuttle comes around again to land, Vandenberg AFB would have shifted 1,500 miles to the east. So they wanted the Shuttle to be able to steer left or right of its descent path as it headed back to the Vandenberg runway. That's where the 1,500 mile requirement came from.

Since NASA had no such demands for "quickie" missions like that, they didn't really need that capability.

[MartG]

ESA IXV launch at 13:00 today - will be shown live here http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/02/10/vv04-mission-...

[dtiom]

MartG said:

ESA IXV launch at 13:00 today - will be shown live here http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/02/10/vv04-mission-...

[Eric Mc]

Watching.

My Spaceflight Now feed is a bit sticky at the moment so I've switched to ESA's own website which is behaving better.

[dtiom]

Just switched to the esa feed - a lot smoother.

[Eric Mc]

ESA should take a few lessons from NASA about how they cover these launches.

The launch is on hold because something has obviously caused a problem. The commentator said there was a problem but they did not know what it was. They then decided to go off air until they found out what the problem was. That was about 30 minutes ago.

NASA would have told you within 30 seconds.

[MartG]

Announcer's still away, so the information given about the resumption of the count by the launch controller has yet to be translated from French

[Eric Mc]

Typical solid booster type launch.

[MartG]

Yes - very quick off the pad

[MartG]

Beautiful pic from one of the pad cameras

[MartG]

Tuesday Feb. 17: A Russian Soyuz rocket will launch the Progress 58 cargo mission to the International Space Station in an unmanned mission launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Liftoff set for 6 a.m. EST (1100 GMT).

Edited by MartG on Sunday 15th February 22:47

[J98]

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/progress-m26m.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX91Ax1B3WA

Thought they were continuing using the 2-1a following on from M-25M, seems like they're going to alternate for the rest of the year though, culminating in the first flight of Progress MS.

[MartG]

http://spaceflightnow.com/2015/02/16/progress-carg...

Live feed

[MartG]

Russian launch video seems to be crap quality compared to NASA ones - around 910x650 resolution

Edited by MartG on Tuesday 17th February 11:06

[Eric Mc]

Missed that.

NASA have optical tracking just about perfect these days. Other space agencies are a lot less proficient at this.