SpaceX Falcon FRF Success!

According to http://kwajrockets.blogspot.com/,

SpaceX successfully performed an engine firing at Kwajalein
today (2/10/06 North American date).

Congratulations to SpaceX for that hard-earned
accomplishment.

Now lets see them review the data, poll the team, come
back when the range is green, and fly!

- Ed Kyle

Go SpaceX!

On a related note, does anybody have statistics for the number of
maiden launch attempts made for other rockets?

Neil Halelamien wrote:
Go SpaceX!

On a related note, does anybody have statistics for the number of
maiden launch attempts made for other rockets?

One of the problems with attempting to compile such a list is
that most "new" launch vehicles are actually composed of
parts from previously flown missiles or rockets. I counted
more than 30 "new" launch vehicles that have flown since
1990, but only a handful of these were really "new".

Here is a list of the results of inaugural flights of "new"
launch vehicles (defined here as launchers with all-new
core stages) flown since 1990.

Ariane 5G 1996 Failed
Atlas V 2002 Success
Conestoga 1995 Failed
Delta IV 2002 Success
H-II 1994 Success
PSLV 1993 Failed
KT-1 2002 Failed
M-V 1997 Success
Taepo Dong 1998 Failed
VLS 1997 Failed

- Ed Kyle

Indeed... it'd be tricky to compile such a list.

With a little bit of googling though I found an interesting bit of
trivia, which is that there were 11 separate attempts to launch the
ARGOS satellite on a Delta II. This was the first Delta II launched
from Vandenberg, but not first overall:
http://www.aero.org/news/newsitems/argos-032299.html

"Neil Halelamien" a écrit dans le message de
news: ...
Go SpaceX!

On a related note, does anybody have statistics for the number of
maiden launch attempts made for other rockets?


I know of at least one lancher where they atempted the maiden launch without
even one full dress rehearsal. That was Ariane I. That it worked on the
first attempt surprised even the people working on it.

Neil Halelamien wrote:
Indeed... it'd be tricky to compile such a list.

With a little bit of googling though I found an interesting bit of
trivia, which is that there were 11 separate attempts to launch the
ARGOS satellite on a Delta II. This was the first Delta II launched
from Vandenberg, but not first overall:
http://www.aero.org/news/newsitems/argos-032299.html

A number of U.S. launch vehicles have stood on their
launch pads for more than a year. I think the Delta IV
at Canaveral right now meets that description. More than
one big Titan were "on pad" for well more than one year.
At least one of the Titan 23G launchers was on and off
the Vandenberg pad over a period of several years.

A lot of stars have to line up before a launch attempt
can be made.

- Ed Kyle

In article . com,
Ed Kyle wrote:
...More than
one big Titan were "on pad" for well more than one year.
At least one of the Titan 23G launchers was on and off
the Vandenberg pad over a period of several years.

There was a case at the Cape in the early 90s where a particular Titan IV
*twice* got unstacked and restacked to replace its SRBs, both times
because they were about to exceed their rated one-year stack life.

A lot of stars have to line up before a launch attempt can be made.

More so for some launchers than for others. Considering just winds, for
example: Proton is rated to launch in 50_mph winds (and at temperatures
anywhere from -50C to +50C); when launch time arrives, it rolls out and
flies. (One reason it can do this is that it's got much larger structural
safety margins than most Western launchers.) Titan IV, at the opposite
extreme, had grown so much from its Titan II origins that (reportedly)
only about one day in four had high-altitude winds low enough for it to
safely launch.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

In article .com, Neil
Halelamien says...

Indeed... it'd be tricky to compile such a list.

With a little bit of googling though I found an interesting bit of
trivia, which is that there were 11 separate attempts to launch the
ARGOS satellite on a Delta II. This was the first Delta II launched
from Vandenberg, but not first overall:
http://www.aero.org/news/newsitems/argos-032299.html

I recall 14 seperate attempts, and I was there. Possibly three of
them didn't proceed far enough along the countdown to count as "real"
attempts.

"What are we going to try to do tonight, Brain?"

"Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try To Launch ARGOS!!!"


And there was the same sort of amateurish launch ops (Uh, we, uh, forgot
to take the rain covers off the tracking radar, uh...), the same borderline
dodgy management (upper stage NTO/MMH tanks only rated to sit fuelled
for thirty days before being drained and having the seals checked, except
it's easier to get an arbitrary waiver on day 29 than to pull down the
stack), etc.

So yes, even the pros do that sort of thing, and it didn't stop ARGOS from
flying, didn't stop Delta II from demonstrating about the best reliability
in the business. When the bar is set as low as "2% catastrophic failure =
superb!", you can get away with a lot of crap.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

Henry Spencer wrote:
In article ,
Sander Vesik wrote:
...Proton is rated to launch in 50_mph winds (and at temperatures
anywhere from -50C to +50C)...

Having to operate between -50C and +50C (and gracefully survive exposure to
-60C) is pretty much the standard for russian missiles and transporters and
where the mindset and capability was probably inherited from.

Not much inheritance was needed -- the original two-stage Proton was
originally meant to have a secondary role as a superheavy ICBM, although
it was never deployed that way.

That counts as a lot of inheritance in my book ;-)

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

"frédéric haessig" wrote in message
...

"Neil Halelamien" a écrit dans le message de
news: ...
Go SpaceX!

On a related note, does anybody have statistics for the number of
maiden launch attempts made for other rockets?

I know of at least one lancher where they atempted the maiden launch
without
even one full dress rehearsal. That was Ariane I. That it worked on the
first attempt surprised even the people working on it.

I think perhaps you are misremembering. The first launch attempt of the
first Ariane 1 was on December 15, 1979. It was aborted eight seconds after
ignition (but before liftoff) due to an engine failure. Technicians were
flown from France to the launch site to rework the vehicle. A launch attempt
on December 23 was scrubbed due to an electrical problem. The first launch
finally occurred on Christmas Eve, 1979. So, there were at least three
launch attempts.

(If by "it worked on the first attempt" you meant that the flight was
eventually a success, you are of course correct, though the following flight
failed as I recall.)

This was the first flight of the venerable Viking series of engines, which
eventually became so reliable that Snecma stopped bothering to do acceptance
test firings before launch. Vikings were retired a few years ago, but a
variant lives on in the Indian Vikas engines used on PSLV and GSLV.

Josh Hopkins