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Tag Archive: Ascension Mk2
Mar 20 2020
Operations Summary – Week of 3/16/20
Mar 19 2020
Ascension Mk2 Flight 1 Analysis
Originally introduced as the Ascension Mk1 Block II back in March 2018, this rocket was meant to be the heavy-lift variant to the orbital Block I, using as many as 4 solid rocket motors to help it get going off the pad with larger payloads. Eventually however as the Block I showed it didn’t have the power to reach orbit the Block II was shelved and the following year brought back as the Mk2 with the addition of the Viklun upper stage. The rocket was originally set to fly in late 2019 until doubts began to creep in about the performance of the new guidance fins in being able to turn the rocket over enough for a shallow orbital ascent. A test flight with the Mk1 was set for the end of the year instead but that was forced back into early 2020 when the KSC was attacked and the launch pad damaged. All this and more details can be reviewed in the mission timeline, which includes tweets dating back to the Ascension program’s inception in 2017. Having over two years to prepare for the launch of this rocket, very little issues were had in the final lead-up to its mission. The rocket was rolled out atop the Mobile Launch Platform and all three service towers were finally used, with the lower booms providing fuel to the two stages and the crew access extension giving power to the Viklun and Kerbin I probe cores. The 1.25m computer core of the Viklun stage is the first of its size and would guide the rocket during ascent using its extra space to hold two discrete CPUs for cross-check and redundancy.
The Flight
Although no issues presented themselves during pre-flight a hold from the weather desk was called during the L-5min final general polling due to upper-level winds being outside launch commit limits. We had to be more careful than usual with upper-level conditions because of the large interstage in this rocket that could literally see it ripped in two if the upper stage strikes heavy winds going in one direction while the lower stage experiences winds in a different direction, an event known as shear. While the winds appeared to be trending downwards in the data received from the weather balloon, we couldn’t be sure whether it would continue. Having the entire daylight window available to us however a second balloon was launched to find out.
Feb 06 2020
Ascension Mk1 Flight 11 Analysis
Ever since the attack on KSC that damaged the launch pad and destroyed our last Ascension Mk1 rocket we have been working hard towards regaining launch capability. It took 2 months to repair the ground service structures as well as the actual pad surface itself, but coming into the new year and new decade we are once again able to send up rockets from the launch pad. This mission will renew the bid for orbit that began back in 2018, and was then suspended at the start of last year when the rocket proved incapable of flying a trajectory that would allow it to enter a decaying orbit without running out of fuel. After testing new guidance fins on the Progeny Mk7-A, it is now time to scale them up to 1.25m rockets and see whether they can give the additional control authority needed to allow the rocket to pitch over faster. This mission will also see new 1.25m payload fairings based on the 0.625m ones that flew on the Progeny Mk7-A, which will be tested to see how they perform under the heat and pressure of ascent. The payload itself contains another RTG test article so it can be slammed into the ground after the flight and analyzed afterwards to determine whether it successfully remained intact and would have not spilled radioactive material if it had contained any.
The Flight
Due to tightening operational budget constraints, we can no longer afford to fail fast for iteration – in fact we can’t really afford to fail at all. This has led to new policies and stricter launch commit criteria (weather, build process, flight quals, etc) going into effect this year. The result was some early delays for the launch due to weather being outside of acceptable constraints, but thankfully it did not remain uncooperative for long and the countdown was able to begin and run to conclusion with no further issues only a day later than planned.
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