We pioneered a lot of firsts on this mission. The launch vehicles. First flight of this launch vehicle . It's the first planetary launch out of this new launch site.
The primary players were Southwest Research Institute, where I work, the Applied Physics Lab, APL, at Johns Hopkins, and Lockheed Martin for the launch vehicle , the Department of Energy for the nuclear power supply. By the way, because Google is a restaurant, we used to call APL, always a pizza lunch.
Originally, they had a different target. They had a launch vehicle problem and they had to adjust to this target. For 2 and 1/2 years, the spacecraft was existing just on heaters, and batteries, and a timer,
So when you're flying by on a close approach to the earth and you're moving very fast, the antennas can track you well. A Minotaur V launch vehicle .
So when you're flying by on a close approach to the earth and you're moving very fast, the antennas can track you well. This is an interesting launch vehicle .
So when you're flying by on a close approach to the earth and you're moving very fast, the antennas can track you well. But the launch vehicle gave us a perfect insertion.
The first is, I went to the Indian Space Research Organization in the book and I saw a rocket launch in South India which was just incredible -- not of a rocket this scale. But the first is a polar satellite launch vehicle which is what carried India's first lunar probe a couple of years ago which was a pretty good success. And India's plan now is to send their first astronaut into space in 2015, which is something in terms of individual nations only three nations have done -- that's China, U.S., and the Soviet Union. And that astronaut
But within a month of launching it, we let everybody go. We didn't need a launch vehicle team any more. We didn't need the Department of Energy anymore.
Now what? How do you get it into space? Are you going to build your own launch vehicle ? OK. That's still a little bit harder than the average bear can pull off.
So if you want something down from station, you're not going to get it. are making use of the launch vehicle .
So when you're flying by on a close approach to the earth and you're moving very fast, the antennas can track you well. The solid rocket motors of this launch vehicle provide you a really strong kick at times.
So if you want something down from station, you're not going to get it. I told you about that in the NASA launch vehicles, or any launch vehicle , you tend to have a small satellite on top of a big rocket, with a lot of extra space.
So if you want something down from station, you're not going to get it. And it sits on the disk and then the launch vehicle sits underneath it.
Spacecraft is awake and alive when it's launched. And then some people like us wanted to launch powered off so that when the spacecraft separates from the launch vehicle , it wakes up. So this boot-up sequence, where you do the boot-up can be controversial.
So when you're flying by on a close approach to the earth and you're moving very fast, the antennas can track you well. It worked beautifully. The launch vehicle did exactly what it needed to do and actually gave us a perfect insertion.
Just a satellite. How bad could it be? But of course, this ICBM would be the launch vehicle for that satellite, and you can see this interesting anthropomorphization of that nuclear weapon.
The critical mass and volume constraints derived from the Falcon I back then. And the Esper is a way to have multiple missions flying on a single larger launch vehicle . Mission duration turns out to be a big driver.
So we made the decision to launch powered off so we wouldn't have as many inhibits that we had to deal with. And then that moves your risk to on orbit once you separate from launch vehicle , that's your power-up. And so that first boot-up, is the one that's the most risky.
So when you're flying by on a close approach to the earth and you're moving very fast, the antennas can track you well. One of the firsts was we were the first one to use a new launch vehicle .
If you go with the standard heavy launch vehicles that we're used to, especially back then, the Atlas V and the Delta IV heavy. They're very expensive. In fact, the launch vehicle 's so expensive that it only makes sense to fly either lots of small spacecraft on it or one big expensive spacecraft to justify the cost.
This is what the observatory looks like in the flight configuration. Interesting thing is you have a payload adapter fitting that is usually what a spacecraft attaches to a launch vehicle with. Because we were trying to save as much mass as possible, you can see that this path which is in the bottom there
So when you're flying by on a close approach to the earth and you're moving very fast, the antennas can track you well. In the spacecraft world, you don't want to be the first to fly a launch vehicle because you have a pretty good chance of something exploding.
So when you're flying by on a close approach to the earth and you're moving very fast, the antennas can track you well. So you can see that the faring in two parts and then you can see the final stack to the right of the launch vehicle .
first astronaut into space in 2015, which is something in terms of individual nations only three nations have done -- that's China, U.S., and the Soviet Union. And that astronaut or those astronauts will go up in a rocket something like this which is a geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle . It'll probably be a bit bigger than that and so they're working on that now, working on the technology just not, not just the rocket technology but also making these things habitable which is actually a huge scientific challenge.
All I was doing was keeping us alive with our life support systems, and the rocket did everything. And the right side there is up docking in the space station, and the left side is our little tiny launch vehicle . Now, the first time you get to float I thought it'd be this magical, crazy experience, but in reality it's very uncomfortable.