Why is the pad called 0A?
Quote from: belegor on 02/13/2013 05:11 pmThis has been bugging me for a while:Can someone tell me what the "7K" in "7K hot fire test" stands for?It's short for "7000", which is just a milestone number in someone's Gantt chart somewhere.
This has been bugging me for a while:Can someone tell me what the "7K" in "7K hot fire test" stands for?
I can only assume that Orbital is not telling us all the details, because it seems odd that a helium purge level (?) issue would lead to a two week delay until the next hotfire attempt. Or am I missing something?
firing was unusually, eerily quiet... maybe it was because the flame trench pointed away from the stands (about 3 miles away IIRC) and the light wind was blowing behind their backs, but they were all surprised (you can actually hear them talking over the rocket's sound in one of the YouTube videos...)
Perhaps an actual launch WILL be louder
Quote from: antonioe on 02/23/2013 12:35 pmfiring was unusually, eerily quiet... The nature's water deluge system was on? Sounded like it was really pouring from the sky.
firing was unusually, eerily quiet...
What is the white jet that shoots to the right from the top of the tower couple seconds after ignition, then sputters rest of the burn and stops with the engines?
Quote from: Jason1701 on 02/18/2013 07:28 pmWhy is the pad called 0A?The launch pads at Wallops were numbered Launch Area (LA) 1 to 5 from south to north. When the new launch pad for Conestoga was added in the 1990ies south of LA-1, it was called LA-0A. Then a second commercial pad was added as LA-0B.
Quote from: Lars_J on 02/14/2013 07:14 pmI can only assume that Orbital is not telling us all the details, because it seems odd that a helium purge level (?) issue would lead to a two week delay until the next hotfire attempt. Or am I missing something?Not really: took a few hours to realize the problem was with the valve actuator (not the valve itself) whose torque was marginal, a day or so to find a more powerful actuator that fit in the space available in the ground panel (wanted to avoid re-routing the line to make room for a bigger one - THAT would have taken longer... every time you open a line you have to clean, re-certify it, etc), another day or so to test the result (including stress-testing it to make sure we had plenty of margin) then we also had to replace the engine's throat weather seals that were blown open by the partially-opened valve, inspect the engines to make sure nothing was out of place, close things up, etc. etc...Oh, and then we had president's day in the middle...So, overall, pretty standard.BTW, it was nitrogen, not He.
Prelim inspection shows MARS launch complex in good condition after Friday's 29-second #Antares hold down test.