The problem
that prevented a suborbital rocket carrying student experiments and the ashes
of 16 people from reaching the edge of space last week has been identified.
The May 2
launch of the UP Aerospace SpaceLoft XL from New
Mexico's Spaceport America was the first annual education launch from the site,
primarily lofting a suite of multi-sensor experiments designed and built by New
Mexico students. The rocket also carried a symbolic portion
of the cremated remains of over a dozen individuals – a memorial service
provided by Celestis, Inc. of Houston, Texas.
The
single-stage solid propellant-fueled SpaceLoft XL
rocket ran into trouble some 10
seconds after liftoff, at about 38,000 feet, explained Jerry Larson,
President of UP Aerospace, Inc., headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The company
was a participating sponsor of the educational launch.
"The cause
of the failure was due to an incorrect flight parameter that was uploaded into
the vehicle on the ground," Larson told SPACE.com. Just prior to engine
burnout of the rocket – then traveling at Mach 5, or five times the speed of
sound – the vehicle's payload section unexpectedly separated, he said.
All
payloads recovered
"It turns
out to be something simple...but with catastrophic results," Larson explained.
The inaccurate flight parameter prematurely set off a payload separation
charge, he said, causing that section of the rocket to tumble through the air
to roughly 45,000 feet.
The wildly
twisting payload section caused the attached nose cone to come apart, with a
parachute system also tearing loose. That rocket section, purposely designed to
enter a flat spin, fell onto the desert landscape at about 110 mph, Larson
said, hitting broadside on the ground about four miles from the launch pad. Under
a normal parachute landing, the payload is designed to touch down at about 20
mph, but its flight processors recording the launch did survive the harder, 110 mph crash.
The booster
continued to climb to some 82,000 feet, later to be found at roughly 5 miles
from its launch departure point. The targeted suborbital altitude of the rocket
- to the
boundary of space - was 70 miles.
All
payloads of the rocket have been retrieved, along with data flight recorders
that clearly identified the rocket's problem, Larson said. At fault were ground
processing procedures in uploading flight parameters and "obviously that's
where our focus is going to be in moving forward," he added.
"It's a
mystery at this point as to what went wrong during that process," Larson noted.
Anomaly
resolution board
Larson said
that a "red team" is being assembled, likely involving Spaceport America, the
Federal Aviation Administration, neighboring White Sands Missile Range and U.S.
Air Force expertise.
In putting
together an anomaly resolution board, any corrective actions recommended by UP
Aerospace will be reviewed, Larson said.
Those
experts will help shape "a tried and true process next time so this will never
happen again," Larson stated. "But this will be behind us quickly because we
have the smoking gun...it is obvious what occurred."
As for the
educational payloads carried onboard the UP Aerospace SpaceLoft
XL, Larson said the recovered experiments have been returned to the students.
Regarding
the memorial service of Celestis and its "Mission
Participants", the goal of sending those ashes into space was not realized.
Among those
honored aboard the rocket flight was Ralph White, a distinguished and
award-winning cinematographer. Among his credits, he documented the expedition
that found the wreck
of the RMS Titanic, and in 1987 and 2000, White co-directed the salvage
operation and photography during the recovery of over 5,000 artifacts from Titanic's debris field.
"Our
customers are entitled to a reflight and we look
forward to launching again with UP Aerospace," said Charles Chafer, Chief
Executive Officer of Celestis.
"The space
frontier is a challenging one and our families understand that a great deal of
the value of our service is the fact that they are assisting in the opening of
that frontier," Chafer told SPACE.com.
Back to
school
The SpaceLoft XL's educational
mission was spotlighted by Pat Hynes, Director of the New Mexico Space Grant
Consortium and the NASA Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research,
or EPSCoR.
The launch
culminated a semester-long curriculum which delivered to students applied
learning, workforce development and education.
"We have
all the payloads back," Hynes told SPACE.com. "The canisters are in good
shape. The payloads have gone through a rough landing. We have not downloaded
any data yet. We believe at least one payload is going to require a good deal
to get data from the memory chip as the data management chip is in pieces," she
said.
Hynes said
that the student launch project will continue, as will the partnership with
Spaceport America.
"This is a
long term commitment being made by New Mexico Space Grant Consortium to educate
the workforce. This is the beginning. Many of the education objectives were met
before we launched," Hynes said.
While the
UP Aerospace rocket didn't reach its intended altitude, Larson said that he
expected the students to glean valuable data, even more so due to the
unexpected glitch.
"There's a
lot more learning with an anomaly than with a successful mission," Larson said.
"I'll vouch for that as UP Aerospace is going back to school as well on this."
Leonard David has been reporting on
the space industry for more than four decades. He is past editor-in-chief of
the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World
magazines and has written for SPACE.com since 1999.
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