Blue Origin thread.

[Jacke]

14 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

As I understood it, the original NASA countdowns were “T-minus…” with the T being short for T_max , or Thrust Max. As in the moment when the vehicle reaches maximum thrust, which is usually when the clamps release.  
But that’s NASA. Other entities can focus the countdown around whichever mark/event they  want. BO apparently chose “Engine Start “

I think "T" refers to the critical Time, just as the terms "D-Day" and "H-Hour" refer to a critical Day and a critical Hour.  "H-Hour" is actually a time that doesn't have to be at the start of an hour.  (During my time with the Canadian Forces, I saw a lot of H-Hours.  And you don't miss an H-Hour by even a second.)

 

8 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I didn’t think I would say this until I saw the video, but I’m not so sure I would prefer New Shepard to SpaceShipTwo.

New Shepard has an escape system, which of course is nice. But New Shepard also has a capsule separation event as a LOCV point, which SpaceShipTwo doesn’t have (if SS2 fails to separate, the carrier aircraft can still land in one piece). And it looks like there is way, way more room in SpaceShipTwo’s cabin than in the New Shepard capsule. New Shepard may have bigger windows and technically go higher, but what of it?

I would hope that New Shepard has multiple redundant explosive mechanisms for capsule separate considering how critical that maneuver is.  As well, there's failure of all 3 parachutes, but with 3 independent drogues and main 'chutes, needing only 1 to land relatively safely, I think that one is covered too.

 

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I'd fly on both given the chance. Idk which one I'd choose given the choice assuming I was able to afford either. It would probably come down to who would be riding with me. They both have their pros and cons.

NS:

• Likely safer
• Goes a bit higher
• Probably more zero G time (haven't counted but it seems intuitive)
• No asterisks
• Way bigger windows
• You get to be cool and walk down a crew access arm

SS2:

• More windows (they are smaller but still a decent size)
• Allows you to look straight down
• Looks waaaayyy cooler
• In the future won't be limited to one launch site, so you can choose from a much more diverse selection of views than just "desert" (but both are just desert for now)
• More room to move around and do flips without accidentally hitting people
• A far longer experience

Could be a pro or a con depending on who you talk to:

• One has higher Gs
• One feels more like a rocket, one feels more like a plane
• Outfits are about the same
• Webcasts are both subpar but in different ways

 

Like aircraft, SpaceShipTwo is its own escape system in abort modes.  On failures requiring abort, the airfrane should remain intact enough to glide to a landing, even gear-up on rough ground.  The only LOCV points I see are:

1. Explosion of the engine with near full tanks.
2. Loss of the wings.
3. Loss of wing folding control.
4. Loss of cabin integrity.
5. Collision with the carrier aircraft.

There's always a risk with a rocket engine, especially a bipropellant combustion one, but an nitrous oxide-solid fuel hybrid is almost as safe as a pure solid fuel design and allows throttling and reignition.  Failure #2 is a risk but with a solid design would require another cause like failure #5.  The loss of VSS Enterprise put the focus on failure #3 and I think the revisions should exclude that.  Failure #4 is unlikely with a small solid craft without another cause and in many cases it should "only" lead to loss of cabin pressurization; I think for max safety, all crew and passengers should wear appropriate suits with reserve oxygen to allow for survival and aircraft control.  And failure #5 should be made near impossible by the correct separation maneuver; this is a mature area considering dropping rocket craft from a carrier aircraft has been going on since the Bell X-1 in the late 1940's.

I look at New Shepard and wonder why the re-entry G's of a purely ballistic design are so low (and it's pointless to add in lift to a near-straight down re-entry).  Must be because they just go high enough and no higher.

I like SpaceShipTwo and if somehow could ever fly on just one, I'd pick it.  As a side note, I think the von Kármán line should be lowered to better match things like when the perigee of a satellite gets to that point, re-entry happens soon afterwards.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Jacke

[mikegarrison]

Parachute landing has been a potential failure point for capsule spacecraft forever, but I'm not aware of any time that a crewed capsule ever had an event more serious than one (of many) parachutes becoming fouled and not working. One of the Apollos landed on only two main chutes, as I recall.

Apollo 15:

Edited July 21, 2021 by mikegarrison

[Ultimate Steve]

21 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Parachute landing has been a potential failure point for capsule spacecraft forever, but I'm not aware of any time that a crewed capsule ever had an event more serious than one (of many) parachutes becoming fouled and not working. One of the Apollos landed on only two main chutes, as I recall.

Apollo 15:

Soyuz 1 is the only big one I can think of.

[mikegarrison]

15 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Soyuz 1 is the only big one I can think of.

Ah, thanks. I didn't know about that one. Or else didn't remember it.

Yeah, that seems to definitely qualify as an example of a fatal capsule parachute failure.

Edited July 21, 2021 by mikegarrison

[tater]

I wonder how both vehicles would rate assessed as the commercial crew vehicles are? Obviously they should be safer since the in-space time is incredibly short, and the descent and landing do not involve a real "reentry" from a heating standpoint.

That leaves the failure modes discussed above. Parachute failure, and separation failure being primary on NS, and airframe failure (pilot error?) being the likely point of failure for SS2/3 (and since they wear chutes, egress is still possible).

 

[mikegarrison]

2 hours ago, tater said:

I wonder how both vehicles would rate assessed as the commercial crew vehicles are? Obviously they should be safer since the in-space time is incredibly short, and the descent and landing do not involve a real "reentry" from a heating standpoint.

That leaves the failure modes discussed above. Parachute failure, and separation failure being primary on NS, and airframe failure (pilot error?) being the likely point of failure for SS2/3 (and since they wear chutes, egress is still possible).

 

I really doubt if the chutes will be standard. Certainly I doubt they will require parachute certification for all their paying passengers.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Parachute failure, and separation failure being primary on NS, and airframe failure (pilot error?) being the likely point of failure for SS2/3 (and since they wear chutes, egress is still possible

Okay - Um... If the capsule chute fails, there is not much time for egress.  If it's only partly failed and the crew tried to egress, the first person to react might make it, but everyone behind her gets a boot in the face as they try for the door. 

[sevenperforce]

15 hours ago, cubinator said:

I gather they haven't designed in an "abort to powered landing" mode?

I don’t think New Shepard has that capability. The rocket is not stable in the tail-first configuration with the capsule still attached; it needs a successful separation in order for the airflow through the ring fin to provide the necessary drag during descent. Also, there’s no way New Shepard has enough prop margin to land with the capsule still attached. 

3 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Okay - Um... If the capsule chute fails, there is not much time for egress.  If it's only partly failed and the crew tried to egress, the first person to react might make it, but everyone behind her gets a boot in the face as they try for the door. 

Well @tater was talking about egress from SpaceShipTwo, not from the New Shepard capsule. There is no egress from the New Shepard capsule and I don’t think they are wearing parachutes either. 

[mikegarrison]

We know Blue Shepard has tested in-flight LES. Surely they could use that system if the normal stage sep process failed. But I don't know why it would fail.

During the broadcast it got a little awkward around the time of stage sep, when the announcer lady told us that we would see the capsule separate from the booster. Instead, that was not visually obvious (probably because we were looking at something through a telescope that was 100 km away, and was kind of just a fuzzy blob at that point). Is that what has suddenly got people talking about "what if the capsule separation fails"?

[tater]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Well @tater was talking about egress from SpaceShipTwo, not from the New Shepard capsule. There is no egress from the New Shepard capsule and I don’t think they are wearing parachutes either. 

Yeah, the 2 "rides" were being compared.

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I really doubt if the chutes will be standard. Certainly I doubt they will require parachute certification for all their paying passengers.

I'm not sure what Virgin will do. Do they need certification if the chute has automatic deployment, and it's just a contingency? I know chutes are a thing on some warbird ride-alongs or the air combat experiences (not on the bombers I've been on, but 2 seaters), presumably no cert required.

The chutes Branson, et al, had on had AADs, so I think the idea was if there was something like the previous accident anyone throw out would at least have a chute (and it deploys itself even if they are not conscious).

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

During the broadcast it got a little awkward around the time of stage sep, when the announcer lady told us that we would see the capsule separate from the booster. Instead, that was not visually obvious (probably because we were looking at something through a telescope that was 100 km away, and was kind of just a fuzzy blob at that point). Is that what has suddenly got people talking about "what if the capsule separation fails"?

I didn't see it that way. Maybe it's just because I know live video is not the top priority of spacecraft telemetry and I've watched several of these launches. But the discussion around capsule separation seems to be more about specific points of failure for each vehicle.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I didn't see it that way. Maybe it's just because I know live video is not the top priority of spacecraft telemetry and I've watched several of these launches. But the discussion around capsule separation seems to be more about specific points of failure for each vehicle.

It was certainly awkward on the stream, though. You'd think the hosts would get telemetry data vs watching what the rest of us saw (a blob).

[Beccab]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/despite-tuesdays-fight-jeff-bezos-is-running-out-of-time-to-save-blue-origin/

[tater]

Blue Honeywell. Ouch.

[Scotius]

18 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

We know Blue Shepard has tested in-flight LES. Surely they could use that system if the normal stage sep process failed. But I don't know why it would fail.

During the broadcast it got a little awkward around the time of stage sep, when the announcer lady told us that we would see the capsule separate from the booster. Instead, that was not visually obvious (probably because we were looking at something through a telescope that was 100 km away, and was kind of just a fuzzy blob at that point). Is that what has suddenly got people talking about "what if the capsule separation fails"?

I experienced the same anxiety, when there was no visual follow-up to "Separation" announcement. But this might be a KSP player paranoia After all, "Check your staging!" is popular in our circle for a good reason!

[mikegarrison]

7 minutes ago, Scotius said:

I experienced the same anxiety, when there was no visual follow-up to "Separation" announcement. But this might be a KSP player paranoia After all, "Check your staging!" is popular in our circle for a good reason!

It was really awkward when she said "you will now see them separate" but you could not see them separate. Nor was there any call from mission control audio calling out "good separation". And then they just sat there with dead air (nobody talking) while we clearly did NOT see any visible separation.

Edited July 22, 2021 by mikegarrison

[Scotius]

I know. It wasn't a pleasant moment. I admit my mind definitely started wandering into dark places. But everything ended well

[mikegarrison]

5 minutes ago, Scotius said:

I know. It wasn't a pleasant moment. I admit my mind definitely started wandering into dark places. But everything ended well

Since I watched it in replay, knowing the flight had been successful, I wasn't as stressed about it as if I had watched it live.

[wumpus]

18 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

We know Blue Shepard has tested in-flight LES. Surely they could use that system if the normal stage sep process failed. But I don't know why it would fail.

During the broadcast it got a little awkward around the time of stage sep, when the announcer lady told us that we would see the capsule separate from the booster. Instead, that was not visually obvious (probably because we were looking at something through a telescope that was 100 km away, and was kind of just a fuzzy blob at that point). Is that what has suddenly got people talking about "what if the capsule separation fails"?

I'd like to assume that booster landed where it was supposed to, and that it has a margin to land the capsule on top of it.  Having the booster fall off much later than expected (i.e. too late for the parachutes) would be a huge problem, but if the parachutes don't pull it off the booster, I don't know what will.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

ARS Technica has an interesting article on Bezos and Blue Origin. 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/07/despite-tuesdays-fight-jeff-bezos-is-running-out-of-time-to-save-blue-origin/

Reminded me of this: at some point several of us quibbled about whether it would be smart for Musk to follow up on his purported intention of riding a future suborbital BO flight.  I argued that he should not, as his leadership and willingness to accept failure as a cost of rapid innovation is unicorn rare. 

This, from the article, explains exactly what I fear will happen if Musk is no longer at the helm:

by sidelining long-time president Rob Meyerson and hiring a traditional aerospace veteran, Bob Smith, to become chief executive... 

Coming from Honeywell, Smith instituted a more bureaucratic management style, and Blue Origin’s progress seemed to slow significantly. Whereas Bezos' debut flight on New Shepard could have occurred as early as 2019, it slipped by months and eventually years. Critics of Smith’s plodding management style started referring to the company as “Blue Honeywell.”

Edited July 22, 2021 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

I'd like to assume that booster landed where it was supposed to, and that it has a margin to land the capsule on top of it.

There is no reason for that assumption, because there is no reason for them to design it that way.

[sevenperforce]

19 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

We know Blue Shepard has tested in-flight LES. Surely they could use that system if the normal stage sep process failed. But I don't know why it would fail.

If nominal stage separation failed, I would be rather concerned about whether firing the LES would make things better or worse. If you have some bolt that didn’t release when it was supposed to and you fire the LES, it could get very...toasty.

Although I suppose you’d have to have a go-no-go at some point. 

[tater]

Is the normal separation a clamp, vs pyros for the LES?

[Elthy]

What i wonder: If the LES has to fire shortly before MECO, wont they reach an even higher altitude than normal? Whats the maximum apogee possible?

[sevenperforce]

18 minutes ago, Elthy said:

What i wonder: If the LES has to fire shortly before MECO, wont they reach an even higher altitude than normal? Whats the maximum apogee possible?

I believe they did a maximum altitude abort test, let me look.

Yep, July 18, 2018. They fired the abort motor shortly after MECO and separation. It reached 120 km, about 14 km higher than on a nominal flight.