SpaceShipOne has made it!

My thoughts exactly!

Pete UKRA #1061 L2 NSRG #003

Point.

It shouldn't have. After all, they're pretty easy set up and operate...

steve

There was one report of premature-shutdown that I could find, and that was published in the Globe and Mail.

Melvill reports having heard a couple of "bangs" while under power. If this was near the end of the burn, it might have been the motor throwing chunks of "sliver", which produces a quite spectacular burp, even in small hybrid motors. If the "chunk" that it threw exposed the silica-phenolic insulator, the fibre-optic burnthrough sensors would have failed shortly thereafter, and shut the motor down. The report I read sound like it was only a few seconds premature.

This is all ***SPECULATION***, since the reports from Scaled aren't final, and they haven't mentioned the cause of the bang that Mellvill heard while under power.

My own hybrid motors will sometimes throw chunks in the long-burn configurations where the fuel grain becomes extremely thin or burns through. This happens very close to the end of the burn, and appear to cause no damage to the motor or nozzle. It hurts performance a little, of course.

I once burned a grain that had two parts that were laminated together (except that they weren't laminated very well). The inner section of the fuel grain got extruded out through the nozzle at extremely high speed, causing a rather loud bang, but no apparent damage to the nozzle or motor, and the rest of the burn was nominal.

During the flight (and I am ABSOLUTELY paraphrasing here, because I don't remember the exact words), there was first a report that the engine had shut down early, and then he radioed "I didn't do it" (or words to that effect). He was definitely (based on the situation at the moment as I heard it) referring to the fact that HE had not shut the engine down early, that either the system shut itself down, or it simply ran through its fuel early.

David Erbas-White

For one thing, the engine shut down early, so they have to look at getting a longer burn from it.

BTW, they had radar from Edwards AFB tracking them and that's where they got their figures.

That's scant claim to call someone an idiot! Why all the silly bickering?

-- Niall Oswald ========= UKRA 1345 L0 EARS 1151 MARS

"Gravity assisted pieces of the rocket raining from the sky should be avoided. It is also financially undesirable."

-Portland State Aerospace Society

ANY excuse to call Jerry an idiot is fully self-justified in the mind of a troll. Tells you a bit about troll minds, eh?