Episode 448: Remove Before Flight

Thanks to Mike for naming this week’s episode!

Spaceflight News

• IM-1 landing follow-up (spacenews.com) (youtube.com) (youtube.com)

Short & Sweet

• ISRO completes human-rating of engine (isro.gov.in)

• Software error responsible for Firefly’s off-nominal payload delivery (fireflyspace.com) (space.com)

• Varda’s capsule returns (spacenews.com)

Questions, Comments, Corrections

• Espen via email: IM-1’s fuel loading

 This Week in Spaceflight History

• 2 March 1965: Atlas Centaur AC-5 explosion (en.wikipedia.org) (science.nasa.gov) (ntrs.nasa.gov) (youtube.com)

• Next week (3/5 - 3/11) in 2001: The first ten-person spaceflight

A high-fidelity mockup of IM-1 Odysseus’ landed orientation (spacenews.com)

Varda’s capsule after landing (spacenews.com)

A diagram of the Atlas propellant system (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov)

Atlas booster fuel system near the fuel tank (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov)

An undamaged Atlas booster prevalve assembly (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov)

The AC-5 booster prevalve (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov)

The AC-5 booster prevalve actuator (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov)

A drawing of the interim prevalve actuator fix (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov)

A drawing of the manual prevalve handle (PDF: ntrs.nasa.gov)