Oops. According to reports they lost telemetry after 1st stage cutoff and the 2nd stage never ignited.
Quote from: Galactic Penguin SST on 01/15/2017 12:30 amOops. According to reports they lost telemetry after 1st stage cutoff and the 2nd stage never ignited. :-(Are they sure it didn't ignite, or just they don't have the telemetry to confirm?
ミニロケット打ち上げ失敗 データ受信できず飛行中断1月15日 10時30分手で持ち運べるほどの超小型衛星を安い費用で打ち上げようと、JAXA=宇宙航空研究開発機構が新たに開発した世界最小クラスのミニロケットは、15日午前8時33分に鹿児島県の内之浦宇宙空間観測所から打ち上げられましたが、機体の状態を示すデータが途中で受信できなくなったため、2段目のロケットに点火せず、飛行を中断して打ち上げは失敗しました。
Here's the tweet from NVS, the team providing video coverage: https://twitter.com/nvslive/status/820443384493973505Google Translate gives me: "Contact from JAXA: SS-520 Unit 4 "The flight of the first stage of the rocket was done normally, but stopped igniting the second stage motor because the telemeter from the aircraft could not be received while flying. "Tracking was successfully done and confirmed falling into the planned falling area on the southeast of Uchinoura"Sounds like they watched the stack fall into the no-fly zone, IMO - but that's a guess, not a certainty. You'd think that if they did they would've been able to tell us about it much earlier.
Sad news
waiting for press conference
Quote from: Galactic Penguin SST on 01/15/2017 12:30 amOops. According to reports they lost telemetry after 1st stage cutoff and the 2nd stage never ignited. NHK has confirmed that: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20170115/k10010840191000.html (they apparently brought in one of their news helicopter in for the launch!)To clarify - there is a pre-programmed check between 1st stage separation and 2nd stage ignition that the flight is alright. If it is not the 2nd stage ignition command will not be issued.
That's what it looked like to me from the launch video. It seems to cut off when the plume was still quite bright, and then nothing. Yeah it was pretty high, but we could still see it going up, and then the plume just suddenly stopped.
Quote from: jamesh9000 on 01/15/2017 12:40 amThat's what it looked like to me from the launch video. It seems to cut off when the plume was still quite bright, and then nothing. Yeah it was pretty high, but we could still see it going up, and then the plume just suddenly stopped.That's what was supposed to happen. Second stage ignition was supposed to be 2 minutes 28 seconds after first stage burn out (at X+3 minutes) at an altitude of 179 km. I think you'd need to have very good eyes to see that occur! Unfortunately, they lost telemetry 20 seconds after launch, so they couldn't determine if the first stage had performed correctly. Their launch procedure was to send a signal at X+2m 44s to enable second stage ignition if the trajectory was within parameters. Being ultra cautious, they decided not to send the signal as they did not have enough information on the state of the vehicle. I would have sent the signal anyway. :-)