Atlas V launch going on now

[Dman979]

They're at the 4-minute planned hold.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

Just transferred to internal power!

[Dfthu]

Count down started at T- 4 minutes

 

Launch good!

 Stage Sep!

 

Faring sep!

 

[CelticCossack51]

I also watched the launch live. I joined in 1 minute before launch.

Edited March 23, 2016 by CelticCossack51
Gwammer

[Motokid600]

Sheesh, Centaur does all the work!

[Dman979]

Look at that pitch up, tho! It's like watching a bad orbiter launch!

Cool, it's going past apo and circularizing

It's a lofting trajectory

and a pretty well done one, too

Edited March 23, 2016 by Dman979

[Dfthu]

We have MECO!

[Dman979]

yup! And they circularize with RCS, too!

 

It's circular, and Cygnus separated!

 

[Streetwind]

Greatly looking forward to the Saffire experiment at the end of this Cygnus mission

[Spaceception]

Whooo!

I couldn't see it though, my mom made me go to bed an hour to launch

[Frida Space]

Apparently the launch was far from flawless, had Cygnus been slightly heavier, it would have probably failed to achieve orbit.

The great folks over at SpaceFlight101 noticed the Booster Engine Cut-Off occured 5.4 seconds earlier than planned, forcing the Centaur upper stage to burn for 61 seconds longer than expected. 30 seconds after the NASA commentator announced "30 seconds to Centaur cutoff", in fact, the Cygnus hadn't yet achieved orbit. Luckily, there was spare fuel on board.

I guess it's a bad news but also a good one, as it shows the Atlas is capable of recovering from a performance hit.

http://spaceflight101.com/potential-performance-hit-suffered-by-atlas-v-a-closer-look-at-the-data/

Edited March 24, 2016 by Frida Space

[Frybert]

4 minutes ago, Frida Space said:

Apparently the launch was far from flawless, had Cygnus been slightly heavier, it would have probably failed to achieve orbit.

The great folks over at SpaceFlight101 noticed the Booster Engine Cut-Off occured 5.4 seconds earlier than planned, forcing the Centaur upper stage to burn for 61 seconds longer than expected. 30 seconds after the NASA commentator announced "30 seconds to Centaur cutoff", in fact, the Cygnus hadn't yet achieved orbit. Luckily, there was spare fuel on board.

I guess it's a bad news but also a good one, as it shows the Atlas is capable of recovering for a performance hit.

http://spaceflight101.com/potential-performance-hit-suffered-by-atlas-v-a-closer-look-at-the-data/

Just goes to show nothing is perfect. And anyone can screw up. Glad it was so minor, would have been terrible for orbital to suffer another set back so soon.

[fredinno]

42 minutes ago, Frida Space said:

Apparently the launch was far from flawless, had Cygnus been slightly heavier, it would have probably failed to achieve orbit.

The great folks over at SpaceFlight101 noticed the Booster Engine Cut-Off occured 5.4 seconds earlier than planned, forcing the Centaur upper stage to burn for 61 seconds longer than expected. 30 seconds after the NASA commentator announced "30 seconds to Centaur cutoff", in fact, the Cygnus hadn't yet achieved orbit. Luckily, there was spare fuel on board.

I guess it's a bad news but also a good one, as it shows the Atlas is capable of recovering from a performance hit.

http://spaceflight101.com/potential-performance-hit-suffered-by-atlas-v-a-closer-look-at-the-data/

Something like this happened before- resulting in a partial failure, but the satellite was able to recover with its own engines. That's not possible in LEO, so it's a good thing they succeeded.