[AR] Re: Falcon 9 flight today
- From: Ben Brockert <wikkit@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2013 20:04:39 -0600
From Mojave I watched the Shuttle do venting of wastewater that they
did before deorbiting. Through good binoculars it was visible as a
cone projecting from the shuttle but it was too dim to be seen by the
naked eye. Other small venting operations would be similar.
This flight was unusual in how much propellant they had to vent. The
payload was about 600kg total but the rocket is rated for 13150kg to
LEO. Even with the performance hits of first stage relight and going
to polar orbit, the upper stage still had literal tons of propellant
on it.
In comparison, with its propellant sensors driving variable mixture
ratio, a full Centaur burn is left with well under 100 kg of
propellant onboard from a start of 20,830 kg.
On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 7:37 PM, Chris Jones <clj@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 10/7/2013 8:16 PM, qbert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>> My question of the dangers of what ever was vented came up when I
>> looked through many other launch reports and found no info of venting
>> in these situations. The fact that it's not mentioned either means
>> other flights never vented and or it was a no issue item. In any case
>> this is the first such incident reported by persons on the ground
>> that I know of which leads one to believe that is not that common of
>> an event, at least in the past.
>
>
> Such events HAVE been reported and photographed in the past, and, as HenryS
> stated, it IS a common event (in fact, it is uncommon not to do it, and is a
> sign of a failure of the launcher or a failure to follow agreed-upon space
> debris mitigation techniques). Although venting is very common, seeing it
> depends on the observer being in darkness while the venting stage is in
> sunlight, so that situation is less common, but not unheard of (more
> correctly, not unseen).
>
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