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Soyuz liftoff!
May. 26th, 2004 09:43 amYesterday, the Intelsat spacecraft was loaded with oxidizer. This is a process that takes pretty much all day, and as far as the safety personnel are concerned, the fewer persons in the vicinity, the better. (Sentences like that always seem to sound ominous... I still remember how Dan Rather made a routine evacuation drill undertaken by a new Mir space station crew sound like evidence of just how hazardous the station was, when the fact of the matter was that new crews are required to do such drills as part of the standard procedure, the way school kids do fire drills. But I digress...)
I was part of the majority of folks who had other things to do, anyway. First on the plan was a trip out to the pad with some of the technicians who were to do some last-minute work on the rocket prior to liftoff. When we got to the pad, the service tower was in place over the launch base, which is the platform the rocket will actually sit on when erected. The service tower itself is a fairly spare structure, mounted on rails, with a set of "arms" that swing out and in. Photography at yesterday's session was "categorically" forbidden, but I'm sure I'll get a shot of the tower before the campaign is over. After achieving the goals of the session, everyone returned to the hotel.
The original time we'd been quoted for the Progress launch was in Moscow time, which is two hours behind us (4:34 pm there is 6:34 pm here), so consequently, the departure time for the bus to the launch site was moved accordingly. It turns out the launch site is close (relatively speaking) to the museum; the bus turned and stopped next to a helicopter pad about half a mile down the road.
I was not surprised to find we were the only people there. What was surprising was our relative proximity to the pad, which the consensus around here says was less than a kilometer. (It's difficult to judge, as there are no visual cues on the landscape to go by, as is the case, say, at KSC.) Soon, however, other buses started to arrive. Two of those buses appeared to be filled with high schoolers, who soon discovered and began to mingle with members of our team.
Waiting for a rocket to launch is a little like waiting for a kettle of water to boil on a stove. In the interim, John P. pointed out the behavior of a ground wasp to me.
The insect was apparently finishing the excavation of a cavity in the ground when John knelt down to photograph it. At that moment, the wasp flew off and I figured it was because it had detected John's presence. I was wrong. A few minutes later, the insect returned carrying a caterpillar. A fat one. An immobile one.
In a flash, the prey (which the wasp lays eggs in, according to John) was dragged into the hole and the wasp emerged momentarily to begin energetically backfilling the opening, vibrating its wings to compact the dusty dirt. Off to the side, someone had picked a twig from some of the sparse vegetation that surrounded us and confirmed that we were standing in a field of wild rosemary.
As the minutes counted down, someone else noticed that the wind was blowing directly into our faces from the launch pad. This fact could be of great significance if Something Bad™ happened during or soon after liftoff, and everyone made a mental note of where to go (think: crosswise to the wind). This is the equivalent of actually turning around to look at the closest exit when you're a passenger on an airplane.
Finally, the moment came. As opposed to the official viewing area at KSC, where there is a big clock and a PAO voice to provide a little color commentary, or even the viewing area at last year's Mars Express launch, where loudspeakers provided audio from one of the console operators in the bunker, at yesterday's launch, you simply had to stay alert. The first indication something was about to happen occurred when the umbilical tower was retracted; then, another piece of equipment fell away. Suddenly, there was a rumble that seemed to come from deep within the ground and you could see some exhaust appear to the right of the rocket.
Then the Soyuz rocket broke free of the earth and roared its way heavenward.
John had wanted me to get a shot of him watching the liftoff, but by the time I had repositioned myself, the Soyuz had already gained some serious altitude, so we all settled down and craned our necks as the Soyuz went directly up and then engaged its programming to pitch over onto its side and head thataway (eastward, away from us), using both its engines and the velocity imparted by the Earth's rotation to deliver its payload into orbit. We lost sight of the rocket after it had climbed above a layer of cirrus clouds up there at jet-stream level.
With that, everyone headed back to their respective buses (other groups had arrived as well). On the road home, our driver passed the buses with the high schoolers, and everyone waved at each other, smiling. It was an excellent launch.
Cheers...
I was part of the majority of folks who had other things to do, anyway. First on the plan was a trip out to the pad with some of the technicians who were to do some last-minute work on the rocket prior to liftoff. When we got to the pad, the service tower was in place over the launch base, which is the platform the rocket will actually sit on when erected. The service tower itself is a fairly spare structure, mounted on rails, with a set of "arms" that swing out and in. Photography at yesterday's session was "categorically" forbidden, but I'm sure I'll get a shot of the tower before the campaign is over. After achieving the goals of the session, everyone returned to the hotel.
The original time we'd been quoted for the Progress launch was in Moscow time, which is two hours behind us (4:34 pm there is 6:34 pm here), so consequently, the departure time for the bus to the launch site was moved accordingly. It turns out the launch site is close (relatively speaking) to the museum; the bus turned and stopped next to a helicopter pad about half a mile down the road.
I was not surprised to find we were the only people there. What was surprising was our relative proximity to the pad, which the consensus around here says was less than a kilometer. (It's difficult to judge, as there are no visual cues on the landscape to go by, as is the case, say, at KSC.) Soon, however, other buses started to arrive. Two of those buses appeared to be filled with high schoolers, who soon discovered and began to mingle with members of our team.
Waiting for a rocket to launch is a little like waiting for a kettle of water to boil on a stove. In the interim, John P. pointed out the behavior of a ground wasp to me.
The insect was apparently finishing the excavation of a cavity in the ground when John knelt down to photograph it. At that moment, the wasp flew off and I figured it was because it had detected John's presence. I was wrong. A few minutes later, the insect returned carrying a caterpillar. A fat one. An immobile one.
In a flash, the prey (which the wasp lays eggs in, according to John) was dragged into the hole and the wasp emerged momentarily to begin energetically backfilling the opening, vibrating its wings to compact the dusty dirt. Off to the side, someone had picked a twig from some of the sparse vegetation that surrounded us and confirmed that we were standing in a field of wild rosemary.
As the minutes counted down, someone else noticed that the wind was blowing directly into our faces from the launch pad. This fact could be of great significance if Something Bad™ happened during or soon after liftoff, and everyone made a mental note of where to go (think: crosswise to the wind). This is the equivalent of actually turning around to look at the closest exit when you're a passenger on an airplane.
Finally, the moment came. As opposed to the official viewing area at KSC, where there is a big clock and a PAO voice to provide a little color commentary, or even the viewing area at last year's Mars Express launch, where loudspeakers provided audio from one of the console operators in the bunker, at yesterday's launch, you simply had to stay alert. The first indication something was about to happen occurred when the umbilical tower was retracted; then, another piece of equipment fell away. Suddenly, there was a rumble that seemed to come from deep within the ground and you could see some exhaust appear to the right of the rocket.
Then the Soyuz rocket broke free of the earth and roared its way heavenward.
John had wanted me to get a shot of him watching the liftoff, but by the time I had repositioned myself, the Soyuz had already gained some serious altitude, so we all settled down and craned our necks as the Soyuz went directly up and then engaged its programming to pitch over onto its side and head thataway (eastward, away from us), using both its engines and the velocity imparted by the Earth's rotation to deliver its payload into orbit. We lost sight of the rocket after it had climbed above a layer of cirrus clouds up there at jet-stream level.
With that, everyone headed back to their respective buses (other groups had arrived as well). On the road home, our driver passed the buses with the high schoolers, and everyone waved at each other, smiling. It was an excellent launch.
Cheers...
