Ares 1 motor test

Yesterday had a successful Ares 1 motor test, unlike two weeks ago. It was a somewhat more minimalist affair… the big display model was gone, there were fewer viewers (I think… I was in a different spot, so who really knows), there was less heat, and ATK wasn’t giving out goodies like they did last time.

I had three cameras going. The Nikon D5000 on a tripod with the zoom lens and set on continuous; the Canon SD960 hand-held; and my little camcorder on a tripod. I’ve not yet reviewed the footage from the camcorder, but most of the still-camera shots are ok. Sadly, I hit the button on the Nikon a few seconds too early… it blazes away at something like five shots per second initially, but after a few seconds it settles down to about one a second (processor limitation, I suppose). The result of that was that it took a whole lot of fast shots of an unignited motor, and then missed ignition itself. Feh. Plus I learned that futzing with the camcorder is a good way to lose track of the handheld still camera.

Anyway, Canon shots:

Some Nikon shots:

Entertainingly, this motor managed to set the distant hillside on fire. The area that was on fire seemed to have been well outside the actual exhaust plume, so the fires might have been caused either by bits of flaming solid rocket propellant shooting out of the nozzle and bounding across the landscape (which would be bad), or perhaps just bits of sand, rock or concrete from behind the motor heated to incandescence and shot across the landscape (which programatically doesn’t mean much).

Here you can see the hillside with some fires going:

Here’s a closeup showing the fire as well as a truck on the hilltop and someone examining/fighting the fire:

Another fire:

Here are two quick panoramas taken from my viewing site, looking back at the crowd. Given the relatively flat nature of the area, it’s hard to get a sense of the large numbers… but at least you can see the cars parked along the highway.

A minute or so after the test, I managed to miss a chance at The World’s Best Photo. I had closed up the Nikon and was putting it away when I happened to notice that a 747 was flying at remarkably low altitude directly over the test site. It came out from behind the plume, trailing contrails out of the outboard engines. Honestly, I’ve never seen a 747 that low around here before (it was not on a course that would take it directly to or from Salt Lake International). By the time I got the Canon point-n-click up and running, the jet was already pretty far gone. It may be that the jet was a charter, carrying cameras, instruments, something. Seems unlikely that someone would use a 747 for that sort of thing, though. Shrug.

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