Ian's Pictures from CSXT's Space Shot 2002

Thursday, September 19, 2002 pictures

These are my pictures from Thursday, September 19, 2002 at CSXT's space launch attempt.

By Thursday, we were getting into a routine. We divided up between BLM staff and CSXT volunteers who would close and guard which playa entrances. Knowing we'd be without Owen this time, BLM was able to find an additional staff member to come for playa closure duty. Since Jeremy didn't have a vehicle, he was with me this time. We were given the 8-mile entrance this time, certainly the busiest duty. But it was also a good variety for me considering which assignments I had the previous days.

Finally, the moment came that all of us had been waiting for in the June and September launch attempt events. The wind was within tolerance. The playa was clear. The software worked. The air traffic control centers answered their phones. The countdown got all the way to zero. The rocket was launched...

Three second after liftoff, the solid rocket motor burned through the side of its casing. The disruption of gas flow inside the motor caused an overpressurization and explosion. In rocketry lingo we call this a "cato", short for catostrophic motor failure.

The BLM Ranger extended the playa closure order as a public safety measure until the pyrotechnic charges were all located and safed. That took less than an hour.

At first it seemed like we had an unbelievable amount of work to do. The debris field was scattered with the big pieces 1/4 mile downrange (upwind) and some little pieces 1/4 mile downwind to the flight line. But by mid-day, we were making enough progress to know we could complete the cleanup. There was still hours to go.

I briefly got my chance to play the hero. I saw how hard that a group of people was working near the pad picking up thousands of toothpick-sized scraps of a piece of wood that had been on the launch pad. I always bring lots of extra drinking water to the desert. So when I drove my truck up with an ice chest full of cold bottles of water, you can imagine how much it was appreciated. I stayed and worked at that site and nearby for hours too.

In the late afternoon, Jeremy and I decided we had to break up camp and hit the road. On the drive home, we sent a text message to Owen with my cell phone as soon as we got the first brief cell service in the terrain of Hwy 447 south of Empire. Trying to be brief but informative for him, the message read:

launch 9:20AM cato@T+3sec all afternoon cleanup

(1536x1024 2212K) (500x333 32K)	A dozen onlookers gather at the 8-mile entrance Thursday morning, when Jeremy and I guarded it during the playa closure. Some of the people watching here are local ranchers. Others are rocketeers from Colorado and Utah arriving to set up for the weekend's "BALLS" rocket launch meet.
(1536x1024 1893K) (500x333 18K)	Thursday morning, the countdown finally got to zero and the CSXT rocket was launched. This is viewed from my truck at the 8-mile playa entrance.
(1536x1024 1708K) (500x333 9K)	This was difficult to photograph with the Sun nearly behind it. The CSXT rocket cato'ed just seconds after launch. (A "cato" is rocketry lingo for a catastrophic motor failure that destroys the vehicle in flight.) This view shows two burning pieces of the rocket motor streaking upward on different paths after the explosion.
(1536x1024 1829K) (500x333 15K)	The pieces of burning propellant from the exploded motor independently reach apogee and begin to fall. What we couldn't see from the 8-mile entrance was the chaos at the flight line. As these visble large pieces fell where they were supposed to on the downrange area away from the flight line, the smallest pieces were blown back to the flight line where they caused a lot of alarm (and advice over the loudspeakers for people to seek cover) though there turned out to be no significant danger from the small pieces.
(1536x1024 1875K) (500x333 18K)	Three smoke plumes rise from the debris of the CSXT rocket. We had to keep the playa closed while crews located and accounted for all the pyrotechnic charges which had been on board the rocket.
(1536x1024 1942K) (500x333 19K)	Three smoke plumes rise from the debris of the CSXT rocket.
(1536x1024 1910K) (500x333 19K)	Three smoke plumes rise from the debris of the CSXT rocket.
(1536x1024 1894K) (500x333 20K)	I was able to briefly get a picture of CSXT crews picking up pieces of the rocket while I escorted the owner of a backhoe (which was being rented by the BM cleanup crews) to the flight line where he could await quicker word of when he could get into the downrange area to his equipment. I had left Jeremy guarding the 8-mile entrance and had to return there after this to continue the playa closure until BLM (under advisement from the FAA) declared it OK to open it.
(1536x1024 2051K) (500x333 27K)	The Winnemucca Fire Dept was on scene. I presumed they came with the BLM staff, whose offices are located in Winnemucca. As far as I was aware, they weren't called upon to put out any fires. (You can't put out a solid rocket fuel fire. But it burns itself out quickly. And the lakebed isn't flammable, which is one more reason why we use it.) But I still thanked them for their help, as I hope many others did.
(1536x1024 2154K) (500x333 31K)	A piece of the motor and a stack of phenolic scraps which have already been picked up.
(1536x1024 2057K) (500x333 28K)	Near the CSXT cleanup area, we took this picture of the "serpent garden" which many of us had noticed over the previous days in the Burning Man cleanup zone. There were more "playa serpents" (mini dunes) here than any of us had ever seen in one place before. This seemed like compelling evidence in favor of the local residents' theory that playa serpent formation is radically accelerated by massive disruptions of the playa surface by the 40,000-person party at Burning Man.
(1536x1024 2014K) (500x333 25K)	Another view of the "serpent garden".

Back to my pictures from CSXT September 2002

This page is copyright (c) 2002 Ian Kluft