Related news, Our space race.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/09/virgin-galactic-space-flight-vss-unity-go-weeks-not-months

Great pics from the gaurdian...

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Those are beautiful. The ney sayers would say those are proof that it blew up hitting the firmerment.

That’s exactly what we saw. When the stages split that was really spectacular. Also your second photo caught just what I thought I saw, which was the first stage doing several tight loops. But I could find any explanation for that. I understand that just after separating the first stage undergoes some lateral rocket firing to get it positioned for its return path back to the launch pad. But I can’t figure why it did that series of 4 or 5 loops.

Finally found an explanation of those loops. Good video here and lots of info in the comments.

Many people ask about those waves that shoot out like rings. Those are puffs of cold nitrogen gas from the Reaction Control System distributed over the rocket. They are used to maintain the orientation of the rocket and to position the rocket for re-entry. Now, for the people who like the nitty gritty, these are called Draco cold gas thrusters and they produce about 200 pounds of force each, with many thrusters clustered together in groups at the top and bottom of the stage. The thrusters are essentially entirely 3D printed by SpaceX and small enough to pick up and hold. Inside the Liquid Oxygen tank there are high pressure Nitrogen bottles to store the gas and metal tubes to split the gas up and divert some to each thruster. At the thruster is a valve and a nozzle.

Reminds me of the good ol days when you could get tickets to watch close - this is back in Feb 2000.

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Thanks for posting, that was great.

Looks like one hour until launch.

T-38m

Another awesome launch and recovery.

Those recoveries are amazing

Dang it, missed it, although I'm not sure what this would look like in daylight. The last one in the evening was awesome. My house is positioned for a really nice view of these launches over in the NW part of the sky. I need to get onto some sort of notification feed so I know when these launches are coming.

On a related note, just by dumb luck I happened to be outside in the evening about this time of year a few years ago and saw a Trident launch off the coast of CA. That was something to see, and it actually was a bit frightening to look at it and to think about what that thing is and what it can do. You could see the thing dancing around, it is similar to the SpaceX rockets where they are maneuvering to get the booster to go back to its landing spot, but in this case its repositioning itself multiple times to spew MIRVs down onto the intended targets. End of the world stuff, keep playing pinball.

This is so great to see. Could someone put tomorrows launch up here so we could see it.

That's a great story xsvtoys.

SpaceX and NASA have decided to delay the Tuesday afternoon launch attempt. New launch time on Wednesday will be 1:16 p.m. ET.

Their food got moldy, so the 40 rodent astronauts refused to go up until they get restocked with fresh grub!

LOL... Anyone know what the 40 rodents actually are?

Thanks. Mickey and friends?

Big one set for 8:15 PST tonight...

Live Coverage:
https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/12/07/delta-382-mission-status-center/

Something happened at T-7 and they aborted. Clock is reset to T-4 minutes.

It was interesting seeing the flames at the bottom and then just shut down. I believe they said before the attempt that initial flames are for burning off excess hydrogen.

Mission scrubbed for the night.

Darn-Scrubbed for tonight. No update on next attempt.

Bummer that thing was ready to fire.

It definitely looked unusual when it fired up, like something was catching fire that normally does not burn like that.

That bit of black smoke didn’t seem right, not sure if that had anything to do with it.

I was concerned it was going to explode on the pad when it shut down.

Damn, I went to the Space X site and I couldn't fine the launch, all I could find was the Dec 5th launch.

This launch was by ULA, not SpaceX.

The Delta IV always has a lot of flames that look strange. They are expected according to their own press releases from previous flights.

I see, thanks. Got a link?

https://www.ulalaunch.com/missions/delta-iv-nrol-71

This is a HUGE rocket. NASA used a Delta IV Heavy to launch to the Sun recently. Notice the major amount of flames well before the rocket lifts off.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/2014/20141126-ula-burning-questions.html

That link explains the flames pretty nicely. Basically they use some “sparklers” to ignite and burn off various hydrogen gas that has leaked out and is just sort of hanging around, this is done a few seconds before the engines light and the purpose is to prevent an uncontrolled excess amount of hydrogen from igniting all at once, which could explode and stuff.

If you go back on watch the video I think it’s the sparklers you see at the very bottom, it literally looks like a shower of sparks shooting out. Then, the flames start shooting up a few seconds later, that’s the excess hydrogen, as the rockets had not started.

Looks like they don't use a water shower too.

Also somewhat interesting is the whole purpose of this launch. It has a “top secret” payload but of course it’s hard to hide with the interwebs these days. It is most certainly a “keyhole satellite” which is basically a Hubble telescope pointed at the ground. They can see a pinball machine sitting in your driveway and might even be able to tell what model it is. (6” resolution??)

No new launch. I know they aborted, but have not followed.

Well dang, I just learned another new thing. I remembered that when you saw the shuttles launching you would see all that water and steam, I always assumed that this was for cooling or flame suppression or something along those lines. Turns out it has nothing to do with that at all, it’s for noise suppression as the huge amount of noise that is generated during the launch causes various damage to the launch platform and the vehicle.

https://interestingengineering.com/nasa-sound-suppression-system-prevents-rocket-from-exploding

Yeah I learned about that a long time ago. The explosion of the 2 solid boosters when they lit on the shuttle was a big problem, they had to come up with something. The solid boosters were like 2 bombs going off

Hope it goes tonight.

Appears to be Dec. 18:

https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

Dec. 18/19Delta 4-Heavy • NROL-71
Launch time: 0157 GMT on 19th (8:57 p.m. EST; 5:57 p.m. PST on 18th)
Launch site: SLC-6, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket will launch a classified spy satellite cargo for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The largest of the Delta 4 family, the Heavy version features three Common Booster Cores mounted together to form a triple-body rocket. Delayed from Sept. 26. Moved forward from Dec. 3. Delayed from Nov. 29. Scrubbed on Dec. 7 by an issue with holdfire circuitry. Scrubbed on Dec. 8 at T-minus 7.5 seconds. [Dec. 13]

Falcon 9 (Florida, 9:35 AM eastern) and Delta 4-Heavy (California, 5:57 PM pacific time, 8:57 PM eastern) are both scheduled for Dec. 18.

Thanks

Falcon 9 in Florida also moved to tomorrow morning (19th around 9 am eastern).

Falcon 9 delayed to provide time to study sensor readings.

Yeah I saw that.

Looks like a Go for Delta-4 at Vandenberg.
2 hours out.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/12/07/delta-382-mission-status-center/

The ULA isn't happy right now. This is working better.