Beccab

Prop load complete, now we're waiting for the t-10 siren

Yep, a good amount of the LOX currently loaded is just to make sure it doesn't leave the pad

I'd say that the next sign we can expect is the siren now

From the quantity of methane loaded, I'd say there's good chances it goes straight to a static fire! We should now be around 25/30 minutes before the test

Fueling has begun! Usually, fueling takes 40-45 minutes after the frost line appears + any hold time; this can change depending on the amount of fuel they want to load of course, but I'd say that it's likely a NET of 1 hour from now from the spin prime.

After a hour long hold (SpaceX drones came to inspect the fuel lines and left), countdown has resumed with some heavy venting from the orbital launch mount

Fuel load should begin soon if they didn't enter a hold

It's weird to think that the R7 that launched Sputnik was considerably more powerful than the rocket which put Glenn into orbit

Should be maximum LOX load and min CH4 load, just enough for the 5 or so seconds they're planning to do

To be fair, they need to fill something like 5-6 hours with nothing but watching LOX condensate for the first 99% of the stream

They're wasting no time today - the ground systems are starting to spool up right now, and the road closure lasts another 11 hours. I'd expect a spin prime first, then recycling for a static fire attempt later today

It is indeed hard to find info on it - the only other relevant file other than the slide you posted i have on it is the image below, and it looks nothing like a Surveyor probe. Very nice model!

Not a storage module, but in the Venus flyby spacecraft, the Apollo CM (yes, CM, not SM) is used to carry an RTG to power the whole spacecraft, which is kept inside all the way to the return to Earth. I guess reentry from interplanetary velocity wasn't dangerous enough already

There were various kinds of S-II orbital launch vehicles proposed during the early Apollo program; the most advanced of them was for crewed mars landings, as a replacement for the many proposed NERVA-based architectures, while others were for Venus/Mars/both flybys that were under consideration before Apollo 1. This one belongs to the latter; the whole document here, paywalled for god knows what reason considering that AIAA had no part in its realization or peer-reviewing (the closest relation I can find is that it references another paper presented at AIAA, but like, this is still a contractor report for NASA's AAP), but this being a reasearch paper there's debatably ethical ways to still get it as you probably know. The summary is this: the study considered 2 main options for a either a 1973 Venus flyby or a 1975 mars twilight flyby, using either a nuclear stage on a modified saturn V or launching two saturn Vs (one with the flyby spacecraft, another with the S-II orbital launch spacecraft refueled in orbit of its missing LOX), and favouring the development of the later option. The one below is the Venus flyby spacecraft, spinning for artificial gravity: While this is the hardware for the proposed Mars flyby: Finally, the main goal of the flyby would be to validate the hardware for a mars landing; thus, the study also describes the spacecraft that would be used for such a mission, a transfer vehicle capable of aerocapture into mars orbit, releasing an excursion module (though it appears to be the pre-mariner 4 NAA mars lander, which is useless) and returning to earth: The transfer vehicle above is studied in a ton more detail and variations on different, NTRS studies, but I've already gone far enough from your original question I think The new parts y'all made are so good! During the last month or so of exams over exams over more exams I've mainly been basically making just kitbashes I'm going to need on future IPP missions, but a couple days ago I've found a way to use the fantastic expanded LM shelter habitat for a crewed outer planets flyby kitbash, which is awesome

S-II orbital launch vehicle proposal from 1967 (NAA) I'm not sure if this is the most detailed proposal for it, but it sure is my favourite: the central J2 removed to allow for tankers to refuel it, docking bumpers added on its front to be able to put multiple of them together and an entire secondary propulsion system made of earth-storable propellants and two LM descent stage engines alongside the J2s

Did nobody post this yet? It feels relevant to the thread

Let's hope the war thunder devs never add inaccurate nuclear codes to the game

Just to recap, in 2022: - SLS finally launched, completing a highly successful mission - F9 made 60 orbital launches, achieving an incredible flight rate higher than even the initial hopeful Shuttle promises - China completed Tiangong's assembly, the third continously inhabited station ever - ULA and Rocketlab, both commercial entities, completed respectively 8 and 9 successful orbital flights ...all while the winner completed 3 suborbital launches, their third worst year, and the fourth launch ended with the capsule activating its abort system and the booster crashing on the ground with a big explosion - and this was over 4 months ago, since then there was zero more information released to the public about this high profile failure of a crew rated system

Out of necessity, probably. Not sure where they got the additional performance, the inclination seems similar to many before this launch to me Also!

5% increase over the previous F9 record, which was already higher than its specifics

For reference, it had also happened a couple times to SN15 back in the day, with no repercussions on the vehicle

They're going fast

Not 100% certain, but even if they passed it at first try I'd imagine they still would want to try it once again before really going for it to iron out the timing of the procedures

While we're at it, another cool video of the entire test: (Overall, the fueling part took roughly 1 hour 15 minutes)