Day 2: On Dr. Evil’s Island
We spent the day today on the island where the rocket will launch from. It’s several miles from Kwaj by boat. The island was once used as a launch pad during the cold war but since had been overtaken by brush and trees. [. . .]
When Spacex leased the island, the first thing they did was cut it down some of the brush to open land. Then they poured concrete down, and presto: instant launch pad. Sounds easy, except that almost every piece of equipment needs to be brought in over 5,000 miles by boat. You look at a truck a little differently when you know it’s the only truck. As in, it’s the only truck.
The team spent today attaching the final piece of the rocket: the chamber. that’s the cone-like thing that goes on the bottom of the rocket. It looks kind of like a big bullhorn.
It’s been a cool day. Rockets and islands. Hard to beat it.
Happy Thanksgiving and see you tomorrow.
Kimbal
MISSION DAY!
T-minus 1 hour and 35 minutes to launch window.
Up at 3 am, the SpaceX crew have been filling the rocket with LOX (liquid oxygen). The Pad-Crew leave the island just before the LOX gets filled and retreat to an island three miles away. The Control Room is 26 miles from Omelek, the Rocket Island.
That’s where I am. I feel like that Farside Cartoon where the dork leopard goes up to the other leopards as they stalk a deer. The dork leopard goes up to them and says: “What’s up guys?”
A thank you to Gary Larson for teaching me when to keep my mouth shut.
The way that a launch day works is that SpaceX is given a window by the military of 6 hours in which to launch. In our case, we’ve been given 9am to 3pm Kwaj time (1pm to 7pm CA time).
If everything is a go at 9am, then we launch at 9am. Right now the only thing that might hold us up is winds. They are varying from 14-25 knots this morning. We would prefer to launch in lower winds.
It’s now T-minus 52 minutes.
I’ll update as things change.
Kimbal
T-Minus 10 Minutes and on hold
The count is being held very briefly at T-Minus 10 minutes to ensure that all procedures have been properly finished.
Very tense and excited atmosphere.
All external variables are within acceptable ranges (weather).
Status 10:51am
The team is waiting to be allowed back on the island. The manual adjustment required can only be done by hand and the LOX is burning off at 500 gallons per hour.
Unfortunately, we have to write up a procedure in order for the military to let us back on the island.
We are waiting painfully while the team writes up a procedure and waits for approval.
Launch will not happen for several hours. The danger of no launch today will be if we run out of LOX before we can fix the valve problem.
Very, very tense.
The Team is on the Island
As a result of the LOX burn-off during this process, we are now in do-or-die mode. If we do not get this procedure done before the launch window closes, the launch is off until a new shipment of LOX can be brought in.
The team here are some of the best in the industry. If it can be done, it will be done.
T-Minus 45 Minutes to Launch!
A very stressful thumbs up
The operation has been successful and the countdown is back on.
Launch time is now 12:50pm Kwaj time, 4:50pm CA time.
Man. Tense doesn’t even come close to describing it.
The Money Shot
We’re T-minus 25 minutes. There is no turning back now.
They are refueling both the LOX and the RP1.
During the operation, they unloaded about 15% of the RP1 from the rocket tanks. The reason they did this was because the LOX tanks and the RP1 tanks are adjacent to each other. If the RP1 tank is full, the fuels effect each other’s temp. With a temperature differential between the LOX and RP1 of about 400F, that causes the LOX to boil-off much faster.
Since the race was to finish the operation before all the LOX boiled off, this move bought them some time. The LOX burn-off went from 8 gallons per minute to 4 gallons per minute. The delay took three hours in all. That’s 750 gallons saved.
I told you they were smart.
T-minus 20 minutes.
Post-Launch Summary
It is a frustrating day, but in truth, the chance of a brand new rocket launching from a brand new launch pad on its first try was exciting, but unlikely. [. . .]
In the end, what I saw was a team of very smart and experienced people, making each decision after careful consideration. No one wanted to abort, but in this business, you always do the right thing.