Without know the timestamp on these images, its hard to determine when exactly this 3rd picture was taken. The vehicle could have been tumbling for some amount of time with regards to the 3rd pic.
Looked like the oxidizer tank to me. If that is true then it is highly unlikely that auto detonation of the oxidizer happened. There is another image with the forward bulkhead of the engine itself but no back half of the engine…
I’ve been watching what people are conjecturing about this incident; just about everyone is talking about the ship. It’s going to be more chilling when the explanation comes as to how one pilot survived and one didn’t. The way all the “reports” have been, it “seems” the pilot who didn’t make it went down with the ship — no reports of two chutes, a report of seeing body parts and a body still in the seat, etc.. the only thing that is clear is that there is a lot of missing information in this regard.
While I’m all for improving the ship and understand that there will always be risk, I daresay that something seriously went more wrong than has so far been admitted.
One possibility is timing. In a dynamic situation like that a fraction of a second can make all the difference. An example is the XB-70 accident. Al White successfully retracted his seat into his escape capsule and ejected. Carl Cross didn’t. The investigation determined that by the time Cross attempted to retract his seat the g-forces had built up to a point that it kept his seat from retracting into his escape capsule. Moments before ejecting White observed that Cross was still leaning forward in his seat from the g-forces, apparently unable to move.
But timing is just one possibility. It certainly will be part of the investigation to find out why Mike Alsbury was unable to eject.
It certainly will be part of the investigation to find out why Mike Alsbury was unable to eject.
Neither ejected. The SS2 didn’t have ejection seats. The best guess is that Siebold was thrown from the craft during the break-up. (The parachutes were designed to auto-deploy at altitude.) Hence his injuries.
It had an escape hatch and I have assumed that Siebold got out and Cross didn’t. I know the tail sections broke off but I thought the fuselage came down intact and broke on impact. Amazing if in fact Siebold survived an in-flight breakup of the fuselage.
True that. And no disrespect was meant by bringing it up. I think I was gauled a little by some of the arm-chair pundits going off about lack of ejection seats — saying so without even knowing what happened yet.
In short, I am NOT looking forward to the report, and am anticipating something very chilling — and perhaps a wake-up call.
No prob Jeff, I just was meaning that we are at the very beginning of the investigation. I am interested in the findings of the investigation–but I fear that there may be a hard push by Branson to limit publication/documentation of the events especially where video is concerned. 6 cameras onboard, multiple tracking cameras at Edwards and who knows what other assets? Branson is famous for manipulating the media but since the NTSB and FAA are involved I am hoping that the coverage of this incident doesn’t get censored by Branson as proprietary information. As we have seen–48hrs + in and only 3 photos have surfaced of the incident.
Looks like SS2 was in trouble right from the start:
“As soon as the release occurred, SpaceShipTwo turned upside down and kicked up as if it were going back in the direction of the mothership, says Wayne Rowley who was watching with his wife, Marlena. “It might have been 10 seconds” before the trouble began, far less than the two minutes into the flight that had been indicated Friday by officials.”
All of you know the difference between an “Incident” and an “Occurrence ” and an incident can be expected during any test phase in any industry. There was NO EXPLOSION. Any photographer would have had a better chance at shooting falling burning debris than a spacecraft going away from earth. Why didn’t the photog follow the surviving pilot’s parachute course and initiate a rescue ? He was probably closer to the anomoly than most causal observers like me who watched from the Spaceport. The fuselage was fully intact after the anomaly, the spacecraft is designed to fly forward (Obviously ) Another question is did the pilot have powered experience or glide test only experience? Propulsion engineers are not likely to light a fuse connected to a bottle of water. They know nothing will happen as long as they know that the bottle is filled with water after testing to make sure it is in fact water. Space is hard !!!!
Here is a question for aerospace buffs. What is the highest altitude that a human successfully bailed out of an airplane or aerospace vehicle that was undergoing rapid disassembly?
It is not a small thing as if the SS2 pilot now has the record, it can be considered a testament to the use of a hybrid engine, that did not explode in a ball of LOX flame.
From what I can find, 50,000 feet out of a U2 seems to be the highest so far… Kittinger does not count as that was intentional.
The record for both the highest speed ejection and the highest altitude ejection were set at the same time. Following an accident on 30 July 1966 in the attempted launch of a D-21 drone, two Lockheed M-21 crew members ejected at Mach 3.25 at an altitude of 80,000 ft (24,000 m)
Although Mach 3.25 is a tremendous speed, the air is so thin at 80,000 ft. that the forces involved were roughly equivalent to an ejection at 460 mph at Sea Level
I am STILL amazed that not a single video has been released regarding this accident. I can understand the S.C. and Virgin are holding onto the official videos, but not a single news organization, visitor..etc has released anything? Come on!!!
Is this something that we are owed? This was a private incident. By law it will receive a federal investigation since it was an aviation accident, but that just means that we can expect a published report. There is no guarantee or right to expect photos or videos.
It looks to me like the reentry configuration was triggered for some reason while the rocket motor was on, and the vehicle quickly exceeded its load limits. The wing box landed practically intact. There is a picture of it on CNN, and the hinge that puts the tail booms in reentry configuration was not locked in the launch position.
I’m no expert but it does seem that, in an instant, the SS2 fuselage broke away from both wings and immediately tumbled 180 degrees.
Without know the timestamp on these images, its hard to determine when exactly this 3rd picture was taken. The vehicle could have been tumbling for some amount of time with regards to the 3rd pic.
Was that the main engine casing half buried in the sand in the video?
Looked like the oxidizer tank to me. If that is true then it is highly unlikely that auto detonation of the oxidizer happened. There is another image with the forward bulkhead of the engine itself but no back half of the engine…
I’ve been watching what people are conjecturing about this incident; just about everyone is talking about the ship. It’s going to be more chilling when the explanation comes as to how one pilot survived and one didn’t. The way all the “reports” have been, it “seems” the pilot who didn’t make it went down with the ship — no reports of two chutes, a report of seeing body parts and a body still in the seat, etc.. the only thing that is clear is that there is a lot of missing information in this regard.
While I’m all for improving the ship and understand that there will always be risk, I daresay that something seriously went more wrong than has so far been admitted.
One possibility is timing. In a dynamic situation like that a fraction of a second can make all the difference. An example is the XB-70 accident. Al White successfully retracted his seat into his escape capsule and ejected. Carl Cross didn’t. The investigation determined that by the time Cross attempted to retract his seat the g-forces had built up to a point that it kept his seat from retracting into his escape capsule. Moments before ejecting White observed that Cross was still leaning forward in his seat from the g-forces, apparently unable to move.
But timing is just one possibility. It certainly will be part of the investigation to find out why Mike Alsbury was unable to eject.
Neither ejected. The SS2 didn’t have ejection seats. The best guess is that Siebold was thrown from the craft during the break-up. (The parachutes were designed to auto-deploy at altitude.) Hence his injuries.
It had an escape hatch and I have assumed that Siebold got out and Cross didn’t. I know the tail sections broke off but I thought the fuselage came down intact and broke on impact. Amazing if in fact Siebold survived an in-flight breakup of the fuselage.
Jeff,
Its barely been 48hrs.
Hey Spacetech,
True that. And no disrespect was meant by bringing it up. I think I was gauled a little by some of the arm-chair pundits going off about lack of ejection seats — saying so without even knowing what happened yet.
In short, I am NOT looking forward to the report, and am anticipating something very chilling — and perhaps a wake-up call.
No prob Jeff, I just was meaning that we are at the very beginning of the investigation.
I am interested in the findings of the investigation–but I fear that there may be a hard push by Branson to limit publication/documentation of the events especially where video is concerned.
6 cameras onboard, multiple tracking cameras at Edwards and who knows what other assets?
Branson is famous for manipulating the media but since the NTSB and FAA are involved I am hoping that the coverage of this incident doesn’t get censored by Branson as proprietary information.
As we have seen–48hrs + in and only 3 photos have surfaced of the incident.
Looks like SS2 was in trouble right from the start:
“As soon as the release occurred, SpaceShipTwo turned upside down and kicked up as if it were going back in the direction of the mothership, says Wayne Rowley who was watching with his wife, Marlena. “It might have been 10 seconds” before the trouble began, far less than the two minutes into the flight that had been indicated Friday by officials.”
Hmm, the pictures thus released do not show this.
Test
All of you know the difference between an “Incident” and an “Occurrence ” and an incident can be expected during any test phase in any industry. There was NO EXPLOSION. Any photographer would have had a better chance at shooting falling burning debris than a spacecraft going away from earth. Why didn’t the photog follow the surviving pilot’s parachute course and initiate a rescue ? He was probably closer to the anomoly than most causal observers like me who watched from the Spaceport.
The fuselage was fully intact after the anomaly, the spacecraft is designed to fly forward (Obviously ) Another question is did the pilot have powered experience or glide test only experience? Propulsion engineers are not likely to light a fuse connected to a bottle of water. They know nothing will happen as long as they know that the bottle is filled with water after testing to make sure it is in fact water.
Space is hard !!!!
Here is a question for aerospace buffs. What is the highest altitude that a human successfully bailed out of an airplane or aerospace vehicle that was undergoing rapid disassembly?
It is not a small thing as if the SS2 pilot now has the record, it can be considered a testament to the use of a hybrid engine, that did not explode in a ball of LOX flame.
From what I can find, 50,000 feet out of a U2 seems to be the highest so far… Kittinger does not count as that was intentional.
http://www.west-point.org/u…
The record for both the highest speed ejection and the highest altitude ejection were set at the same time. Following an accident on 30 July 1966 in the attempted launch of a D-21 drone, two Lockheed M-21 crew members ejected at Mach 3.25 at an altitude of 80,000 ft (24,000 m)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Although Mach 3.25 is a tremendous speed, the air is so thin at 80,000 ft. that the forces involved were roughly equivalent to an ejection at 460 mph at Sea Level
http://www.ejectionsite.com…
I am STILL amazed that not a single video has been released regarding this accident. I can understand the S.C. and Virgin are holding onto the official videos, but not a single news organization, visitor..etc has released anything? Come on!!!
Is this something that we are owed? This was a private incident. By law it will receive a federal investigation since it was an aviation accident, but that just means that we can expect a published report. There is no guarantee or right to expect photos or videos.
It looks to me like the reentry configuration was triggered for some
reason while the rocket motor was on, and the vehicle quickly exceeded
its load limits. The wing box landed practically intact. There is a
picture of it on CNN, and the hinge that puts the tail booms in reentry
configuration was not locked in the launch position.
George Pattison gets the prize on this one….
yea, with the forces pointing inward, not outward as would be the case with an explosion. Not saying it was not possible, but ti seems unlikely.
Don’t have a sense of scale here but that does not look like the engine casing. Looks more like a tank…
That assembly looks conical not cylindrical?