Blue Origin New Shepard fails during first stage ascent, capsule survives | Hacker News Reader

Blue Origin New Shepard fails during first stage ascent, capsule survives

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32 pointsmakerofspoons11 comments

More info: "New Shepard suffers in-flight abort on uncrewed NS-23 mission"

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2022/09/new-shepard-ns-23/

the embedded YT in that article has the non-twitter version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqAVWvOT-1c&t=4885s although it seems to differ only in the continuity of the video and someone softly saying "whoa" after max-Q, and I'm guessing everyone in the room from that point forward was holding their breath (maybe even literally)

That was some serious acceleration by the escape system. Looked like +100 mph (160 kph) in a fraction of a second. I wonder what the chances are of a human crew sustaining permanent injury, like with fighter jet ejection seats?

(Yes, it's better than the alternative!)

Dang that's crazy to think about, this isn't my domain but just made be think about some (older) airplanes ejecting the crew downwards through a hatch to prevent ejection injuries. Don't think that is relevant here, though

Despite the chipper commentary I see no indication stepping through the YouTube feed frame by frame that a retrothrust system engaged and softened impact.

If it did it was within 10s of ms it looks like...?

The abort engine burn apparently used up the solid fuel engine, so the capsule landing wasn't gentle either. Looked like it dug a substantial hole.

Ya, it looked like a hard hit. But the announcer on the radio said "there go the retro thrust systems". So maybe they actually fired before impact and it just looked like an impact cloud?

Of course, she also called it an "off nominal situation" which sounds like a parody of corporate speak.

That cheary voice claiming the retro thrust success, turned me really off. There was no deceleration at all. All that dust was impact dust. It would have been much better to see that in silence, rather than hearing a forced attempt to feign success...

Frame by framing it it did look like it went off and sent out clouds before impact, but things were kind of behind a hill so it was a bit hard to judge (you can use ',' '.' to step forward and backward by frame on youtube desktop).

Rocketry traditionally contains a lot of euphemisms like "off nominal situation". E.g. the self destruct system on rockets is generally called a "range safety package".

I do feel like it's distinct from corporate speak though. Rocketry euphemisms are really just science-folks hedging their bets. Sure the rocket is doing something abnormal but the cause and result of it won't be properly clear until some research has been done so "off-nominal" seems like an apt description in the meantime.

Link to the webcast [1]. Event begins at approximately 1:21:45.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqAVWvOT-1c

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