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  #1  
Old 11-04-2020, 03:45 PM
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Default Atlas 5 sunset launch in ~45 min!

An Atlas 5 will launch at sunset at Cape Canaveral in ~45 minutes--live coverage is *here*: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/11/...-status-center/
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Old 11-04-2020, 04:04 PM
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That is, if they get that GSE oxygen valve sorted.....currently on hold and technicians out to the pad to see what they can do. I can't find how long the launch window is and therefore how long this can go on before they have to scrub for the day.
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Old 11-04-2020, 04:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BEC
That is, if they get that GSE oxygen valve sorted.....currently on hold and technicians out to the pad to see what they can do. I can't find how long the launch window is and therefore how long this can go on before they have to scrub for the day.
Yep... They're pretty good at trouble-shooting, though, so hopefully they'll go in today's window.
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Old 11-04-2020, 04:55 PM
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Looks like no-go for today:

“SCRUB. The Atlas 5 launch team has officially declared a scrub for tonight. The next opportunity to launch the NROL-101 mission will be Friday night, after a scheduled launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from nearby pad 40 on Thursday night.”

I guess the ol’ hammer banging on the valve just didn’t quite do it.


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Old 11-04-2020, 05:01 PM
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Yep. Scrubbed.
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Old 11-04-2020, 05:03 PM
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Try again Friday after SpaceX puts a GPS satellite up tomorrow evening (well, that's the plan, anyway).
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Old 11-04-2020, 05:27 PM
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Oh well--at least we know when to watch for their next try. I love sunset (and sunrise) launches where the Sun, below the horizon, catches the vehicle and its exhaust plume while the observers and cameras are in darkness below (a sunset Titan II launch at the Cape, where the Sun caught it right at staging--and a sunset Lunar Orbiter launch on an Atlas-Agena D [observers were able to follow it more than 400 miles downrange], were very spectacular). But night launches, especially of kerolox-powered rockets, are equally striking in their own way; the exhaust plume glows in the night sky, looking like a greatly elongated, translucent onion.
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Old 11-04-2020, 05:34 PM
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I recall one of the shuttle launches shortly after sunset where the exhaust trail was illuminated from behind by the sun that was below the horizon. It looked pretty spectacular (and made a mockery of the flat earth theory!).
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Old 11-04-2020, 06:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jadebox
I recall one of the shuttle launches shortly after sunset where the exhaust trail was illuminated from behind by the sun that was below the horizon. It looked pretty spectacular (and made a mockery of the flat earth theory!).
I've never seen a solid propellant vehicle ascend under those conditions, but I have seen pictures and videos of them taken under such astronomically "depressed-Sun" (the Sun being below the horizon) conditions, and I heartily agree! (I also noticed that "non-flat Earth" demonstration when we watched Apollo 18 [heading for the meeting with Soyuz 19] from across the Banana River; as the Saturn IB rose and went farther downrange, it sank *lower* in the sky after reaching a peak [angular] altitude, as it curved over the far horizon [the "Jeranism" video that denies the existence of satellites and the spherical earth--it's somewhere on YouTube, and *this* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sUSSOKI1as guy's video is included in it--is simultaneously funny and frightening...].)

I saw Shuttle, Delta II, and (once, at night) Commercial Titan III launches from Miami, at night and during the day. During the day, the exhaust plumes--whether solid- or liquid rocket-generated--persisted for several minutes. At night, the solid motors' incandescent trails were spectacular (even casting a dazzling glare on the tree behind which they rose, from my observation point), but after they burned out they disappeared (the Shuttle and Titan liquid propellant engines' exhaust was invisible, unless one was near the Cape in latitude and could look up their nozzles [we also noticed that when Apollo 17's Saturn 5 staged; we never saw the S-II's exhaust after the kerolox S-IC separated, and its solid retro-rockets created a ring of luminous purplish smoke]). But:

Even a solid rocket exhaust plume seen from a distance, in broad daylight, is surprisingly spectacular. By pure chance, on the afternoon of September 30, 2001 I caught the launch of the Athena I vehicle that carried the multi-satellite Kodiak Star payload https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_I from what is now called the Pacific Spaceport Complex - Alaska (PSCA), on Kodiak Island; this was the first orbital launch from Alaska. I was at work out at the Fairbanks International Airport, and I happened to glance out my parking booth window toward the south. (I knew that the launch was in the works, but being the first of its kind, the inevitable [except for the Saturn I vehicles] delays made its exact date and time uncertain, and the news didn't cover it closely at all.) Rising from the southern horizon, angled slightly to the west, was a straight, dense, grayish-black smoke trail, definitely NOT an aircraft contrail. About a minute or so after I first looked (the rocket was already a few degrees above the horizon), the trail suddenly "puffed out" and then continued; this was the burnout and separation of the Castor 120 first stage (similar to the MX ICBM's first stage), instantly followed by the ignition of the Orbus 21D second stage motor.
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http://www.lulu.com/product/cd/what...of-2%29/6126511
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  #10  
Old 11-04-2020, 08:17 PM
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Joe Wooten Joe Wooten is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by blackshire
I've never seen a solid propellant vehicle ascend under those conditions, but I have seen pictures and videos of them taken under such astronomically "depressed-Sun" (the Sun being below the horizon) conditions, and I heartily agree! (I also noticed that "non-flat Earth" demonstration when we watched Apollo 18 [heading for the meeting with Soyuz 19] from across the Banana River; as the Saturn IB rose and went farther downrange, it sank *lower* in the sky after reaching a peak [angular] altitude, as it curved over the far horizon [the "Jeranism" video that denies the existence of satellites and the spherical earth--it's somewhere on YouTube, and *this* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sUSSOKI1as guy's video is included in it--is simultaneously funny and frightening...].)

I saw Shuttle, Delta II, and (once, at night) Commercial Titan III launches from Miami, at night and during the day. During the day, the exhaust plumes--whether solid- or liquid rocket-generated--persisted for several minutes. At night, the solid motors' incandescent trails were spectacular (even casting a dazzling glare on the tree behind which they rose, from my observation point), but after they burned out they disappeared (the Shuttle and Titan liquid propellant engines' exhaust was invisible, unless one was near the Cape in latitude and could look up their nozzles [we also noticed that when Apollo 17's Saturn 5 staged; we never saw the S-II's exhaust after the kerolox S-IC separated, and its solid retro-rockets created a ring of luminous purplish smoke]). But:

Even a solid rocket exhaust plume seen from a distance, in broad daylight, is surprisingly spectacular. By pure chance, on the afternoon of September 30, 2001 I caught the launch of the Athena I vehicle that carried the multi-satellite Kodiak Star payload https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_I from what is now called the Pacific Spaceport Complex - Alaska (PSCA), on Kodiak Island; this was the first orbital launch from Alaska. I was at work out at the Fairbanks International Airport, and I happened to glance out my parking booth window toward the south. (I knew that the launch was in the works, but being the first of its kind, the inevitable [except for the Saturn I vehicles] delays made its exact date and time uncertain, and the news didn't cover it closely at all.) Rising from the southern horizon, angled slightly to the west, was a straight, dense, grayish-black smoke trail, definitely NOT an aircraft contrail. About a minute or so after I first looked (the rocket was already a few degrees above the horizon), the trail suddenly "puffed out" and then continued; this was the burnout and separation of the Castor 120 first stage (similar to the MX ICBM's first stage), instantly followed by the ignition of the Orbus 21D second stage motor.


I watched STS-7 launch in June 1983. It was spectacular.
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