Black Cormorant

Personal Slingshot Maneuver

When a spacecraft approaches a moon or planet at high speed, it makes a close approach, curves around, and returns nearly the way it came.  If they approach head-on, the spacecraft can gain speed, like a ping-pong ball bouncing from an approaching paddle.  This is termed a slingshot maneuver.

I am about to experience a slingshot maneuver with Moscow.  My visa expires on Saturday, and the last flight I could get was Friday. 5 other visitors and I had originally gotten single-entry visas for Russia. Our friends here did a great deal of research, and were told by the authorities that, since we were visiting the special zone for rocket launches, we would not need visas for Kazakhstan; and indeed would not actually be leaving Russia.  The first was true; the second was not, in practice.  The official at the exit insisted on stamping our visas as we left, thus invalidating them.  We could not legally re-enter Russia. 

After a a great many phone calls, and 3 hours of working on forms and finding the correct officials, the Russian consul at Domodedovo Airport agreed to issue us 5-day visas. They can't be extended while I am in Russia. The trouble and expense of flying to another country to obtain a third visa didn't seem worth it. Consequently, I will leave about 9 days earlier than expected.  This is far better than the alternatives, of being deported or issued visas for a few hours.  It's a change in plans.  However, the scientists here are extremely busy in the aftermath of the launch, and are getting busier as the spacecraft is readied for operation.  So, it's probably just as well that I am leaving early.

 

Rocket Launch

We watched the launch from about 3 km away. Activity around the rocket, and vapor from the liquid-oxygen tanks, was easily visible. The burn began on schedule to the second. Flames erupted from the base of the rocket, then a large cloud of exhaust formed.  The rocket lifted off quickly and sped up into the sky. I wasn't able to resist shouting "It's a bird!", which (my father told me 45 years ago) is what rocket engineers say when their creations leave the Earth.  7 seconds after ignition, we heard an earth-shaking rumble, punctuated by sharp cracks, as sound from the site finally reached us.  The rocket tilted quickly, shed its first stage and proceeded to orbit. 

The rocket is the new Zenith-2.  This was characterized as an "eco-rocket" -- its fuel is kerosene and oxygen, much less toxic than the hydrazine used by the earlier Proton and Soyuz rockets.  It has a slimmer profile, without the flaring strap-on boosters that made those look so Russian.

Russia assembles its rockets in a horizontal position, and carries them to the pad by rail, on cars equipped with special hydraulic cradles. At the pad, the cradle rotates and lifts the rocket into a vertical position, and holds it there during fueling. During the countdown the cradle drops back to the car, and the rocket supports itself: this seems precarious, but the forces are small compared with the G-forces during acceleration.  Piloted by a very brave crew, the train pulls away from the rocket 4 min before liftoff.

The orbit was modified from a circular orbit a few hundred km above the earth, to an ellipse reaching nearly to the Moon, by the Frigat booster.  This took place in the southern hemisphere, out of contact with Russian tracking stations; it must have been somewhat nerve-wracking for the controllers.  In the event the burn worked perfectly, and only a couple of hours after the launch the spacecraft was on its final orbit; and we were eating lunch at the "Hunter's Cottage" in Baikonur.

Launching a space mission must be somewhat like raising a child.  You work for 25 years, providing the best preparation you can imagine and afford; and then you launch this precious creation into a region of unknown dangers where you have little control.  Differences include the fact that work on a spacecraft actually involves 8 hours of work a day, for which you are paid; and children can be called back for modification.

Rocket Launch Video

Of the various videos of the launch now on the web, this is the most interesting to me, and also gives some feeling for the experience of watching the launch. 

 

I will post some still photos of the launch as soon as I can. 

After the launch yesterday, we visited the pad where Sputnik was launched into space; and Yuri Gagarin as well. We then had a pleasant lunch in Baikonur, and went to the airport.  We waited for an hour to board, then another hour on the plane.  After the 3-hour flight we visited the consul at Domodedovo Airport to see if we could get visas to re-enter Russia.  I'll describe that elsewhere.

Today the Astro Space Center organized an information session, attended by many journalists, discussing the mission and how the spacecraft was constructed.  The focus was, appropriately, on those who spent years designing and constructing it. Articles have appeared in the Russian press and in the west as well, as I understand it.  Following, we spent a couple of hours sipping champagne and vodka and making a few toasts.  Then, we organized groups interested in different topics.  I am in the pulsar group.  Following that, we had a teleconference with scientists who had been unable to attend the launch.  We had a great deal of discussion on how best to synchronize clocks on Earth and the spacecraft, and how to include the position of the spacecraft in the calculation.  Pulsars may play a role in this work.

The spacecraft appears to be doing well. The upper stages (more properly "boosters") made the prescribed series of burns, and the orbit is precisely as wished: with perigee of 576 km, and apogee 333600 km.  (For comparison, the Moon is at about 380000 km).  Once in orbit, the only power source was onboard batteries; the power from these was used to deploy solar panels.  Deployment worked and the spacecraft has power indefinitely.  All deployment is done except for the last -- opening of the dish.  To fit into the rocket, the parabolic antenna was folded up like an umbrella.  The arms (or "petals") were designed to unfold in orbit. The operation is critical since the antenna must unfold completely to produce a surface with precisely the correct shape to focus radio waves on the receiver.  So, this process may be somewhat exciting.  It is scheduled for Friday: the day I will leave Russia.

Good & Bad

The spacecraft launched perfectly this morning and is in the correct orbit and communicating. It will take a month or so to bring systems up and check them out.

Some visa issues have arisen. Stay tuned!

Silk Road to Space Road

Baikonur was a city on the silk road: the trade route that carried silk from China to Europe before the Europeans discovered sea routes in the 14th century.  This Sunday market in a park in Baikonur had many buyers and sellers who looked like they would have fit right in with Marco Polo, with slight changes in clothing and products. The market seemed well organized and closely supervised, with the sellers wearing special badges and stalls segregated by product.

These young ladies sold me a cup of kvas, a traditional Russian beverage made from bread.  It's great in hot weather! They said that they didn't want their picture taken, but laughed hard enough to make me think that they didn't mind. One seemed to be making a few photos of me, in any case.

Here I am enjoying a cup of kvass.

The area around Baikonur is famous for melons.  We enjoyed them at breakfast.  Many people took melons back to Moscow.

The lady on the left sold me a bunch of grapes. They were very sweet: delicious!  Her friend worked in the next stall, also selling fruit.

Not everyone was happy to be photographed. I bought a sun hat from an older lady. When I trotted out my Russian phrase to ask if I could photograph her, she who responded "Nyet, nyet, nyet". She seemed upset and unhappy. Perhaps she had not been just a hat seller, before the Soviet Union collapsed. I hoped that she had not lost a son or husband in the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

A pair of young women in white coats inspected the market for hygiene. They asked my name and nationality -- giving me a chance to use some phrases from memorized dialogs -- and expressed amazement when I said "Amerikanski".  My claim to be from Santa Barbara was clearly far beyond belief.  (Almost all Russians are familiar with Santa Barbara from the soap opera, which was a big hit here after it ended in the US.) This pair wouldn't pose for a picture, perhaps fearing that it would be unprofessional.

This young lady sold me a pair of sunglasses. She ran the shop with another girl; they seemed to do excellent business.

This young man sold me a plate of pilaf for lunch. It was delicious, particularly with a cold beer. He cooked it in this brazier, made from a recycled oil drum.  Somehow he kept his clothing spotless.

Hotel Tsentralnaya

We moved to a different hotel in Baikonur: older, with in-room air conditioners instead of central air, smaller rooms, smaller beds -- but closer to the center of town and restaurants, and costing about 1/4 as much per day.  It also has in-room internet access, so I no longer need to sit in the lobby and rely on a contractor to share a password.

The banner out front marks the 50th anniversary of Gagarin's flight: the first orbit of the Earth by a human being.  On the steps are Norbert Bartel from York University in Canada and Leonid Gurwitz from Delft University and JIVE in the Netherlands (JIVE is Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe -- VLBI stands for Very Long Baseline Interferometry). Leonid trained as a cosmonaut and has a lot of interesting stories and perspectives on Baikonur and the Russian space program. 

In front of the hotel is a large square, formerly a parade ground, dominated by a statue of Vladimir Lenin. Baikonur was, of course, originally a military site, devoted to development of ICBMs. Women were forbidden.  When a few women arrived to work as nurses and clerks, the social life picked up; famously, all soldiers were ordered to take dancing lessons. Behind the statue of Lenin is an officer's club, often used as a theater, but now empty.

Dinner with the Director General

Last night the international scientists attending the launch had dinner with Vladimir Popovkin, Deputy Defense Minister and the Director General of the Russian Space Agency.  He is the top official in charge of all Russian space programs, manned and unmanned, civilian and military.  He's attending to his work here at Baikonur, and very kindly took the opportunity of our presence to invite us to dinner.  Also attending were the Director of the Lavochkin Association, and Academician Nikolai Kardashev, the Director of the Astro Space Institute of the Lebedeev Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

I found Director General Popovkin to be unusually thoughtful and engaged.  He started the dinner by observing that he had many chances to talk with Russian scientists about future directions for their space program, and he was very curious to hear our opinions, as visitors from overseas, as to the best directions for future Russian scientific missions, and the properties of Russia that made those the best.  Our answers took the form of toasts, as is traditional at Russian dinners.  He listened to our responses, and his toasts, in turn, indicated that he'd thought carefully about them.

My own toast included the observation that Russia has a long tradition of strength in theoretical physics. I ascribe this, in part, to their excellent educational system. I suggested that the papers of Kardashev, for example, have remained classics because they take theory as their compass.  Thus, I proposed a toast to the theorists.

Deputy Minister Popovkin very kindly agreed to be photographed with me, and the image is below. Because I brought only one set of clothes to Baikonur, I am not particularly well dressed; but as one of our Russian hosts told me, not much is expected of an American.

 

Buran

Here is a Buran, the Soviet-era reusable space vehicle, similar to the shuttle, at the Baikonur space museum.  It is slightly larger than the shuttle, and was launched on a larger rocket.  It flew once in space, without human crew, as a test -- before the economic crisis attending the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the program.  Actually ten were built, so this is not unique.

Here I am at the controls.  This is the copilot seat.

 

Korolev Cottage

Today we visited the museum of of Russian space flight at Baikonur.  It's an impressive record of an active industry, dating back to before Sputnik and stretching to today. This involved a trip to the site to "plakata 0" where the original builders of the site stayed.  This small cottage was used by Korolev, the first Chief Designer.  A nearly identical cottage next door was used by Gagarin and his backup in the days before his historic flight.

Rocket Dawn

This morning at 5:15 am local time, some of the other visitors and I watched a Proton booster launch, from the hotel. This rocket is larger than any commonly launched from the US nowadays; it is not the largest Russian rocket, but it's the largest in common use at present.  It was carrying two satellites to geostationary orbit; one a communications satellite for Kazakhstan.  The launch site is 60 km away for the hotel, but the show was impressive. Precisely on time, we saw a bright orange glow in the northeast, which faded briefly and then brightened again.  A bright dot traveled up from the ground into the clouds.  As we turned away, thinking that the show was over, we saw a contrail from the first stage through a hole in the clouds, as it dropped back to Earth.  The bright dot of the second-stage traveled onward in a gentle curve to orbit.  At the same moment, we heard a tremendous rumbling: sound had finally reached us from the launch site.  As we watched, the exhaust from the second stage expanded to form a cloud, illuminated first in orange and then in brilliant white.  Sunrise had taken place at the high altitude of the rocket, much earlier than at our spot on the ground.  The cloud seemed like a small sun.  It reminded me of the short story "Rocket Summer" by Ray Bradbury, in the Martian Chronicles, where the launch of an enormous rocket to Mars in wintertime in a small Ohio town produces a short but pleasant summer.  In this case, we saw a short but brilliant dawn.