[Music]
>>If you're gonna go to the Moon or if you're gonna go to Mars, it's expensive, and you
can't do that multiple times.
Flight Opportunities is a great program.
It really mitigates the risk.
Many times we've had payloads come through our program, and they find problems with their
systems, they're basically getting space environment exposure through the means of Flight Opportunities
Program.
There's thermal problems, heat doesn't rise in space, that's a big problem.
There's two-phase flow, where you've got boiling, you've got gasses and liquids together, that's
different in space.
>>Some payloads are looking to operate in microgravity, in zero-gravity.
Other payloads are looking to be ejected from the vehicle and come down to Earth.
Folks are using our testing to do some pretty cheap mitigations, because once this goes
on its mission to a planetary body far away or coming back to Earth or what have you,
usually there's no second chance, you gotta do it right the first time.
[Music]
>>Things look really good.
>>Things look good?
>>Yep, I have ten satellites on each.
>>This is our SL-12 Rocket.
We have a four-fin design.
All the fins are canted at a half a degree of an angle, that provides a spin for the
vehicle to help with stabilization.
As we move forward here, we have the solid rocket motor propellant inside here, this
will all burn in approximately twelve seconds, pushing the vehicle approximately three-thousand
seven-hundred miles an hour, which is right around Mach Five.
Once this is spent it becomes dead weight, and we'll actually separate it into space
right here.
Inside here we have our parachute tube and recovery system along with some of our avionics
hardware, flight data recorders, etc.
Inside this section we have two wrap around antennas.
One is an S-Band and the other is a GPS L-1 Band.
In the center of this section we have an AFTU here, which is actually horizontal, and then we
have another AFTU which is vertical.
As we move forward we get into what is known as our separation section right here.
We have a cradle system that will actually hold the ADEPT payload.
It just seats up against our, what we call the aftsebaeu.
After a certain time, that afsebeau will push ADEPT out, but before we can even do that,
we have this nose cone here, which is being held in by two eighth-inch aircraft-grade
cables that will be cut at T plus sixty-five seconds, which will remove everything from
here to the end of the nose cone, getting it out of the path of the ADEPT payload.
>>Attention launch crew, this is the launch conductor, prepare to give your ready for
pre-countdown operation start.
Flight?
>>Flight is ready.
>>TLM?
>>TLM is ready.
[Background conversation]
>>The ADEPT payload is powered on and ready to proceed.
LCO to LC, Slamstick payload is powered on.
>>ADEPT, like with everything at NASA, is an acronym; it stands for Adaptable Portable
Entry and Placement Technology.
ADEPT is a heat shield that can stow folded up like an umbrella, and then it can open
up in space, before it enters a planet's atmosphere, and do its job as far as slowing down and
safely protecting your payload.
And that allows us to launch a payload in a much smaller rocket than a traditional rigid
heat shield would need.
>>This is a suborbital vehicle, which means that it gets shot almost straight up, and
then essentially falls once it reaches it apogee, or its highest point.
For this vehicle, we'll get to about one-hundred and twenty kilometers above sea level, well
into the vacuum of space, and we can test our deployment system in a flight-like environment,
just like it would be in a real mission, and then it will reenter the atmosphere, and as
it reenters the atmosphere, it will start to sense some G-load.
And eventually we'll accelerate all the way to Mach Three.
Heating essentially starts at about Mach Five.
So five times the speed of sound, there's enough energy in the flow to actually start
creating significant heat.
There will be a little heat, but nothing significant, nothing to worry about.
So this is essentially a test of stability and also the in-space deployment.
We'd like to do further testing at higher altitudes where we could actually get to Mach
five or higher, and then get some real heating as well.
[Crickets chirping]
>>We're gonna proceed with payload power-up sequencing, and we're gonna start with ADEPT, and if
you remove access panels on both sides of the separation section.
[Background conversation/Music]
>>ADEPT is go for launch.
>>All payloads are flight mode verified.
>>LPS raise launcher to nominal firing position.
All systems are go for launch, check fifteen.
Standby for terminal count at T minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three,
two, one, fire.
[Rocket Launch]
Missile away.
[Rocket/Mission Chatter]
>>Burnout.
>>Good burn.
>>Copy good burn.
[Applause]
[Music/Rocket Staging]
>>This vehicle does not have a parachute, it will hit the ground going approximately fifty
miles an hour.
What we've done is we've built in load attenuation systems into this.
And so, there's essentially a block of crushable foam between the nose cap and some of the
critical electronics.
And so if it hits right on the nose, what happens is that carriage will break intentionally,
and slide through that foam, and that attenuates the load, so it limits the load that the electronics
see to about one thousand Gs.
And that's a range that an SD card, or a typical memory will survive.
And if it lands at a different angle, it actually reduces the load even more, because you actually
start bending structure, and that's another way to attenuate load.
>>Right after the payload hits the ground, we deploy on a helicopter and go and recover
the payloads.
[Music/Chopper]
>>Wow, mangled.
>>We had a good time today, everybody's really happy, that's the end of a good day, when
the payloaders have their data and they're able to pull it out and start comparing it to their
computer simulations and models and things like that, so a successful mission, you know,
means a lot, and that's really what we're all about it.
>>Watching this launch was super exciting, even the payload I'm working on is not maybe as
complex as the ADEPT payload, it's still, it's a part of you that goes above the Karman line, that
is very exciting.
So a bit of, a bit anxious, but also relieved and very excited when I saw that rocket roar
across the sky.
>>Well the technologies that NASA's working on, it's broad-reaching.
It covers all kinds of different things that will benefit, you know, the American people,
and really even the world, some of these technologies, like today, the ADEPT, that could support
a Mars mission someday.
>>It's a great feeling, once you know, you see all the hard work for months, you see all the
hard work, for months the reward is to have a successful launch.