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ULA Is Livestreaming An Atlas V Rocket Launch (upi.com)
United Launch Alliance -- a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing -- is livestreaming tonight's launch of an Atlas V rocket. UPI reports:
The rocket is set to blast-off at 7:13 p.m. ET from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida... The primary payload is the Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM, or CBAS, a geostationary communications satellite... Behind the CBAS payload is EAGLE, a platform capable of releasing several secondary payloads into space. According to Gunter's Space Page, EAGLE is carrying five additional payloads, all experimental satellites.
Here's a good overview of the mission: Saturday's mission will begin with ignition of the Atlas Common Core Booster's RD-180 engine, 2.7 seconds before the countdown reaches zero... Five Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-60A solid rocket motors will augment the CCB at liftoff, igniting about T+1.1 seconds as the rocket lifts off. Climbing away from Cape Canaveral, AV-079 will begin a series of pitch and yaw maneuvers 3.9 seconds into its mission, placing the rocket onto an 89.9-degree azimuth -- almost due East -- for the journey into orbit. Atlas will reach Mach 1, the speed of sound, 34.4 seconds after liftoff, passing through the area of maximum dynamic pressure -- Max-Q -- eleven-and-a-half seconds later.
Long-time Slashdot reader Zorro also shares an interesting remark by the CEO of Boeing when asked if Boeing's cancelled Sonic Cruiser might be making a comeback. "'Something better,' teased the Boeing boss, promising point-to-point connectivity anywhere on Earth in a matter of hours."
And when asked whether Boeing might launch a car into space, he replied instead that "We might pick up the one that's out there and bring it back."
Here's a good overview of the mission: Saturday's mission will begin with ignition of the Atlas Common Core Booster's RD-180 engine, 2.7 seconds before the countdown reaches zero... Five Aerojet Rocketdyne AJ-60A solid rocket motors will augment the CCB at liftoff, igniting about T+1.1 seconds as the rocket lifts off. Climbing away from Cape Canaveral, AV-079 will begin a series of pitch and yaw maneuvers 3.9 seconds into its mission, placing the rocket onto an 89.9-degree azimuth -- almost due East -- for the journey into orbit. Atlas will reach Mach 1, the speed of sound, 34.4 seconds after liftoff, passing through the area of maximum dynamic pressure -- Max-Q -- eleven-and-a-half seconds later.
Long-time Slashdot reader Zorro also shares an interesting remark by the CEO of Boeing when asked if Boeing's cancelled Sonic Cruiser might be making a comeback. "'Something better,' teased the Boeing boss, promising point-to-point connectivity anywhere on Earth in a matter of hours."
And when asked whether Boeing might launch a car into space, he replied instead that "We might pick up the one that's out there and bring it back."
Thanks Slashdot. Amazing.
Meh, they're trying. Belatedly.
But yeah... this isn't exactly on par with watching a SpaceX launch. Even if they seemed more excited about their work, the fact that they don't seem to be trying to really achieve anything meaningful, pushing envelopes on what can be done... that sort of guarantees that they're not going to make as interesting of a webcast.
But again... at least they're trying.
I will pull over this spaceship right now!
If anybody wants to watch 7:13 ET is apparently 23:13 (UTC) so adjust for your own time zone... aaand you've missed it.
Wake me up when they livestream the landing
I will say this for this particular launch, with all those strap on SRBs, that rocket got up and went when it left the launch pad. The Falcons and other launches I've watched lately kind of lazily climbed off the pad. This one looked like an Estes rocket in comparison.
Otherwise, I agree with your general sentiment. Even the quality of the in-flight video wasn't as good as Space-X and we didn't get to see the staging.
The RD-180 used on Atlas may be the most advanced kerosene fueled rocket engine, but seriously, Atlas and Centaur are behind others in avionics. They do their job well (the ascent) but as the OP stated, it invokes an emotional response that six pieces of suborbital hardware are just going to tumble back to sea at terminal velocity and sink.
This is great! I wish all launches were live streemed. I am still amazed that many people are fixated on minimizing rocket fuel cost. The move to purchase an air breathing engine for rockets is going to turn out to be a big financial mistake. It is fool hardy to think you can put an O2 liqifacation plant on a rocket. The physics are way way harder than landing a rocket vertically. And talk about carrying useless mass around... condensing coils, wings, full surface heat shielding for wings not only the inefficiency of trying to push that thing through the air at supersonic speeds. Blue Horizon and SpaceX have the low cost high performance idea down. For those who bad mouth using a giant rocket to deliver a small satalite package I say how big is the truck that delivers fedx packages? When all you need to add is fule the size of the truck does not matter much.