SCRUB: SpaceX - Falcon I (Mk.II) NET March 19

[William Graham]

blueguitarbob - 19/3/2007  10:45 PMwebcast oscillation gone?

Yes, same here.Just need sound now.

[Gary]

Streaming here is REALLY choppy but that might be my ISP

[Cretan126]

braddock - 19/3/2007  4:42 PM  Q: Daily breeze: You have $400 million in orders now? A: That's correct..about 400 million. [..] Q: Those five orders since demo 1, how many were they? A: Well, three of the five were COTS, so that's $2xx million.  [fourth we can't discuss]  and I can't remember what the fifth one was...[will have to check].

 

And $100m is the ceiling an IDIQ contract with the Air Force.  The actual award to-date is around $30k-$50k for a User's Guide.  Plus, on the COTS contract they actually have to deliver something and then get paid after the fact.  The early milestones are pretty rote- SRR, PDR, etc - but they get tougher when hardware is involved.

[amon]

Someone should tell them they misspelled Technnologies :-)

The video distribution network is overloaded - it's missing updates.

[joncz]

landofgrey - 19/3/2007  6:44 PM

webcast is getting pretty spotty. i guess we're killing their feed. how reminiscent of last year.

Their feed nothing!  The only place getting spaceX's feed is Akamai... You're killing Akamai (who continues to sink in my opinion of service delivery)... BTW, I've been trying for 15 minutes and can't even get connected to the feed.  :angry:

[William Graham]

blueguitarbob - 19/3/2007  10:45 PM webcast oscillation gone?

It's back.

[nathan.moeller]

Oscillation back.  Still no commentary.  About 11 minutes to launch.

[blueguitarbob]

Ok. So the webcast picture oscillation is back... I don't really care, as long as the propulsion system works.

[shuttlepilot]

Now only 10 minutes to planned liftoff time.

[braddock]

I asked about whether the engine compartment has been enclosed:

A: Absolutely.  The engine compartment has been completely blanketed off.  I believe they purge it with nitrogen. [...]

[long list of improvements, including reduced number of b-nuts, improvements in operations, etc]

They have about 15 folks on the island supporting the launch.

I asked about Vandenberg and the Cape.
They plan to get permission to start operations at the Cape "in the next few days".  Vandenberg is "a bit further behind".  They will be building a Falcon 9 site at Kwaj.

[Nick L.]

L-10 minutes. Still nothing. Are they still holding, Chris?

[Chris Bergin]

I think we've all got it out of our systems about the webcast, so let's cut down the talk on how crappy that is.

[braddock]

We feel very good about this particular flight.  If we do scrub today it will be because of a data issue.  [...] There has been a solar conjunction which has really effected our communications with kwaj. [...]

[Cretan126]

Can we assume that since Gwynne "Little Black Skirt" Shotwell is taking questions from the press, the launch is still on hold?

[gordo]

looks pretty windy

[Chris Bergin]

Data issue is corrected.

A little bit behind in the count.

Delayed Prop loading activities.

No new T-0 Zulu yet, but looks good for today.

[DaveS]

gordo - 19/3/2007  11:53 PM
looks pretty windy

Only about 13 kts.

[braddock]

"Good news,  The data is back up in El Seguedo (sp).  We are a little behind in the count...[trying to get status.  Looks good for today]."

The call host does not have a telemetry screen anymore.

[hmh33]

"There has been a solar conjunction which has really affected our communications with kwaj."

Sounds like someone's been reading from the BOFH excuse book