Captain Jebediah and Commander Valentina head back out in the new Deuce to put the engines through the real test – high G maneuvers – to ensure they remain running properly, unlike last time
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Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
engineers will be reviewing and validating the data collected from today's flight - if all looks good tomorrow Jeb & Val will be back up in the air to put the aircraft through some high-G maneuvers that the old engines couldn't handle
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
SRG is still under the mountain's shadow but the sun is already up enough out east over there for Jeb & Val to see their departure, Deuce is ready to taxi out into even better weather than yesterday
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
lined up for takeoff, today's flight will be short and focused on two main objectives: whether the engines will stall or the aircraft will break apart doing high-G maneuvers. Ideally, neither of these things will happen
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
good departure, to the south this time to head for the flat grasslands. Trimmed out for ascent, Jeb is sitting back and enjoying the climb out over the mountains
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
after two high-speed dives at full throttle (150m/s & 200m/s), Jeb & Val pulled out of both with a sustained load of over 5Gs and a peak load of 6.8Gs. Both dives also climbed out to a vertical stall and recovery. Val reports all flight controls still attached
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
Jeb just finished a series of 90° high-G turns (150m/s+) again with sustained loads of 5-6Gs with a peak load of 7.1Gs. Aircraft still flying fine, engines had not even the tiniest hiccup in operation
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
setting up for another northward horrendously steep approach to SRG Jeb says he's not going to "let Val have all the fun around here" but also claims he won't be coming in anywhere near as hot as she did
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
true to his word, Jeb crossed the threshold at 80m/s versus Val's heart-stopping 115m/s short final yesterday but Val said she was worried at the start of the approach that Jeb was going to sink the plane into the ridge line he was going so slow
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
data review will be underway shortly for today's test flight but unless serious problems are found there or with the airframe inspection Jeb & Val will be cleared to fly back to KSC this week for the Deuce's first cross-country flight
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
here's a look at the dives Jeb & Val took earlier today from their flight data. Jeb managed to pull out of each vertical stall pretty much right back to where he started without over-stressing the aircraft
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
more data visualization, this time a normalized look at the vertical high-G pulls to get a better look at the correlation between speed and G's, with altitude thrown in to mirror the speed
Kerbal Space Agency
@KSA_MissionCtrl
preliminary flight report for yesterday's launch is included in our review of events this past week - get more details via bit.ly/OpSummary4-23-…
