It was hilarious for me , but embarrassing for Northrup Grumman to be simulcasting the audio from somebody’s Verizon cell phone along with the official Countdown Loop-1 audio feed. And some spurious chitter chatter from some other ground loop channel. ” Hot mike ” or ” dumb phone ” or ??? How does this even happen ?
The screen presentation format for the Antares flight looks amateurish even comparing to a RocketLab flight. It should not be that expensive for Northrop Grumman to do a better looking presentation along with fixing the audio issues. Especially since the Antares launch cost more than a Falcon 9 launch.
That doesn’t really surprise me. Both Mr. Muck and Mr. Beck come from a background in fairly new, technology and internet companies. Having a good media and internet presence, and getting the graphics right, would probably be an obvious priority for them. And it’s not surprising if people who grew up with video games and CGI have higher standards for good graphics than those who didn’t. I’m not sure if the Northrop Grumman board of directors cares as much. They’d certainly realize that projecting a good image is important, but maybe not with the same emphasis or enthusiasm.
I found it to be the most unprofessional and amateur broadcast I ever seen. Total embarrassment for NG and sad state of affairs. Seems like SpaceX is the only space organization that can do anything right anymore!!!
ULA’s (not Boeing) webcasts are usually pretty good, if very matter-of-fact compared to SpaceX (sometimes I prefer that to the wild cheering in the background while the SpaceX host doesn’t bother to say what the cheering is about). What went wrong with the Starliner launch webcast, I don’t know, but it was awful.
I have covered hundreds of launches in the past 25 years and I have never hear such an amateurish comms loop as this. Gee, imagine if something serious suddenly happened and everyone is listening to someone try to call someone on their cellphone?
I suspect keeping the line clear is something NASA inherited from the military. Early in the second world war, that was a serious problem for naval aviation. Pilots were saying way too much on the air, and there were some battles where it was almost impossible for flight directors to coordinate anything. That stopped after enough people got yelled at enough times. NASA’s launch and mission control practices were set up when that was recent history and by people with enough of a military background to remember it.
I’ll have to watch this launch. I’ve watched previous launches of Antares/Cygnus and never detected an issue with extraneous communication. In fact it makes a nice drinking game, take a drink every time you hear the word “nominal”.
The video feed of the control room (which I think is located in a office park in NoVa) has always been a model of decorum. I remember a comment from someone before “and crowd went mild!”.
It was hilarious for me , but embarrassing for Northrup Grumman to be simulcasting the audio from somebody’s Verizon cell phone along with the official Countdown Loop-1 audio feed. And some spurious chitter chatter from some other ground loop channel. ” Hot mike ” or ” dumb phone ” or ??? How does this even happen ?
The screen presentation format for the Antares flight looks amateurish even comparing to a RocketLab flight. It should not be that expensive for Northrop Grumman to do a better looking presentation along with fixing the audio issues. Especially since the Antares launch cost more than a Falcon 9 launch.
That doesn’t really surprise me. Both Mr. Muck and Mr. Beck come from a background in fairly new, technology and internet companies. Having a good media and internet presence, and getting the graphics right, would probably be an obvious priority for them. And it’s not surprising if people who grew up with video games and CGI have higher standards for good graphics than those who didn’t. I’m not sure if the Northrop Grumman board of directors cares as much. They’d certainly realize that projecting a good image is important, but maybe not with the same emphasis or enthusiasm.
I found it to be the most unprofessional and amateur broadcast I ever seen. Total embarrassment for NG and sad state of affairs. Seems like SpaceX is the only space organization that can do anything right anymore!!!
Definitely not a good look for Northrup Grumman. Totally unprofessional. Hopefully, managers gave the guilty parties a dressing down.
Th vanishing countdown clock in the final two minutes didn’t do viewers any favors, either.
Not sure who is worse – Boeing or NG. Seems that SpaceX is far superior to both. I guess frequency helps you get it right.
ULA’s (not Boeing) webcasts are usually pretty good, if very matter-of-fact compared to SpaceX (sometimes I prefer that to the wild cheering in the background while the SpaceX host doesn’t bother to say what the cheering is about). What went wrong with the Starliner launch webcast, I don’t know, but it was awful.
SpaceX hosted their webcast right next to the SpaceX cafeteria.
I have covered hundreds of launches in the past 25 years and I have never hear such an amateurish comms loop as this. Gee, imagine if something serious suddenly happened and everyone is listening to someone try to call someone on their cellphone?
I suspect keeping the line clear is something NASA inherited from the military. Early in the second world war, that was a serious problem for naval aviation. Pilots were saying way too much on the air, and there were some battles where it was almost impossible for flight directors to coordinate anything. That stopped after enough people got yelled at enough times. NASA’s launch and mission control practices were set up when that was recent history and by people with enough of a military background to remember it.
I’ll have to watch this launch. I’ve watched previous launches of Antares/Cygnus and never detected an issue with extraneous communication. In fact it makes a nice drinking game, take a drink every time you hear the word “nominal”.
The video feed of the control room (which I think is located in a office park in NoVa) has always been a model of decorum. I remember a comment from someone before “and crowd went mild!”.
The wild chaotic animation at the end was my favorite part. wocka wocka!